GEDCOM and Your Genealogy Software

A GEDCOM file can be used to transfer genealogical data between users who may be using different software for preserving their data. GEDCOM accomplishes this by using a standard set of tags (or descriptors) to describe each piece of data. Because it is "standard", theoretically, you can share the file with others and they should be able to import it into their program. This is a highly valuable feature that any genealogy program should provide. A problem arises when some of these programs create their own (nonstandard) tags that are not recognized by other programs. In the worst case scenario, the receiving program will crash. In other cases the program may handle unknown tags more gracefully.

In the 1990s, I started using Familty Tree Maker (FTM) software to store and document my family history. I ultimately upgraded to Family Tree Maker 2006. I didn't need to use a GEDCOM because I was importing to a different version of the same program. I noticed that the baptisms fields were changed to social security number fields. I thought this was just a glitch in transferring from an old version of FTM to the newer one. As I encountered this change, I fixed them back to baptisms. It sure seemed like I was fixing quite a few and that after many years, I should have fixed them all.

I didn't appreciate the extent of the problem until I decided to export my data as a GEDCOM for another genealogy program. FTM created valid a valid tag for social security numbers (SSN) but implemented the rest of it incorrectly. The social security number itself was added after a PLAC tag which is not correct. It should have been right after the SSN tag. The baptism (BAPM) fields and burial (BURI) fields were frequently changed by FTM into SSN fields! This has meant spending a whole day manually editing the GEDCOM file containing over 9,000 individuals. I had to determine if the SSN tag was intended as a social security number, a baptism, or a burial and then fix it.

So, what should I take away from this article? Check out your genealogy program and see if it exports a valid GEDCOM file in a way that a different program can successfully import. This might be particularly important if you are using some version of Family Tree Maker (I don't know if they fixed the problems I encountered in later versions). You might also check for issues sooner rather than later because editing a file with thousands of names takes a long time and you run the risk introducing errors during editing.