How to Open a GEDCOM File (and What It Actually Contains)

If you have ever exported your research from a genealogy program, you have probably ended up with a file ending in .ged. That is a GEDCOM file, and it is the closest thing family history has to a universal language. Here is what it contains and how to open one.

What GEDCOM actually is

GEDCOM (short for GEnealogical Data COMmunication) is a plain-text format for storing family tree data. It was created so that different genealogy programs could share information — a tree built in one tool can be moved to another without retyping everything.

Inside a GEDCOM file you will find:

• Individuals — each person, with names, sex, and identifiers
• Events — births, marriages, deaths, with dates and places
• Families — the links between spouses and between parents and children
• Sources — notes on where each fact came from

It is just structured text, so you can technically open it in any text editor. But raw GEDCOM is hard to read — it looks like a list of numbered tags — which is why you almost always want to open it in something that draws it as a tree.

How to open a GEDCOM file

The quick way — view it online. The fastest option is a browser-based tool that reads the file and renders it as a chart. Blaadline imports GEDCOM directly: create a new tree, choose your .ged file, and it builds the chart for you — no installation, no account setup beyond a Google sign-in. This is ideal if someone has sent you a file and you just want to see it.

In desktop software. Programs like Gramps (free and open source) or the desktop apps from the major genealogy services will open a GEDCOM file if you prefer working offline.

As raw text. If you only need to check a detail, opening the .ged file in Notepad or any text editor shows the underlying data. Useful for troubleshooting, not for reading a whole tree.

Where GEDCOM files come from

Almost every genealogy platform can export one. Look for an "Export" or "Export tree" option and choose the GEDCOM (.ged) format. This works in:

• Ancestry
• FamilySearch
• MyHeritage
• FamilyEcho and most other tree builders

Because the format is shared, this is also how you move between tools without losing work — export from one, import into another.

Import it and keep building

Opening a GEDCOM file to look at it is one thing; continuing to work on it is better. When you import a .ged file into Blaadline, it becomes a live, editable tree: add new relatives, fix connections, handle blended families, and then print the result.

If you are moving off a paid platform, importing your GEDCOM is the first step — see free alternatives to Ancestry. And if you are starting fresh instead, our guide on how to make a family tree covers the whole process.