Gedcom Standard for Genealogy: Everything You Need to Know to Fill Out Your Genealogy Tree

Tag

Full Name

Description

ABBR

ABBREVIATION

Abbreviated name of a title, description, or name.

ADDR

ADDRESS

Contemporary location, generally required for postal purposes, of an individual, an informant, a reference, a business, a school, or a business.

ADR1

ADDRESS 1

The first line of an address.

ADR2

ADDRESS 2

The second line of an address.

ADOP

ADOPTION

Related to the creation of a parent-child relationship that does not exist biologically.

AGE

AGE

The age of the person at the time an event occurred, or the age indicated in the document.

ALIA

ALIAS

An indicator for linking different records of a person who may be the same person.

ANCE

ANCESTORS

Related to the ancestors of an individual.

ANUL

ANNULMENT

Declare a marriage null from the beginning (never existed).

ASSO

ASSOCIATED

An indicator for linking friends, neighbors, relatives, or associates of an individual.

AUTH

AUTHOR

The name of the person who created or compiled the information.

BAPL

BAPTISM-ESDJ

The baptism event performed at the age of eight or later by the authority of the priesthood of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (See also BAPM)

BAPM

BAPTISM

The baptism event (not ESDJ), performed in early childhood or later. (See also BAPL and CHR)

BARM

BAR_MITZVAH

The ceremony organized when a Jewish boy reaches the age of 13.

BASM

BAS_MITZVAH

The ceremonial event organized when a Jewish girl reaches the age of 13, also known as "Bat Mitzvah."

BIRT

BIRTH

The event of entering life.

BLES

BENEDICTION

A religious event of granting divine care or intercession. Sometimes given as part of a baptism ceremony.

BURI

BURIAL

The event or ceremony of proper disposal of the mortal remains of a deceased person.

CALN

PHONE NUMBER

Phone number.

CAST

CASTE

The name of the rank or status of an individual in society, based on racial or religious differences, or differences of wealth, inherited rank, profession, occupation, etc.

CAUS

CAUSE

A description of the cause of an event or fact associated with it, such as the cause of death.

CENS

CENSUS

The event of periodic counting of the population for a designated location, such as a national or state census.

CHAN

CHANGE

Indicates a change, correction, or modification. Generally used with a DATE to specify when an information change occurred.

CHAR

CHARACTER

An indicator of the character set used to write these automated information.

CHIL

CHILD

The natural, adopted, or sealed (ESDJ) child of a father and mother.

CHR

BAPTISM

The religious event (not ESDJ) of baptizing and/or naming a child.

CHRA

ADULT_BAPTISM

The religious event (not ESDJ) of baptizing and/or naming an adult person.

CITY

CITY

A lower-level jurisdictional unit. Normally an incorporated municipal unit.

CONC

CONCATENATION

An indicator that additional data belongs to the higher value. The information of the CONC value must be linked to the value of the previous higher line without space and without carriage return and/or line break. Fractional values for a CONC tag must always be split at a non-space. If the value is divided on a space, the space will be lost during concatenation. This is due to the treatment spaces receive as a GEDCOM delimiter, many GEDCOM values are cut from trailing spaces and some systems search for the first non-space beginning after the tag to determine the start of the value.

CONF

CONFIRMATION

The religious event (not ESDJ) of conferring the gift of the Holy Spirit and, among Protestants, full adhere to the church.

CONL

CONFIRMATION_ESDJ

The religious event by which a person becomes a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

CONT

CONTINUATION

An indicator that additional data belongs to the higher value. The information of the CONT value must be linked to the value of the previous higher line by a carriage return and/or newline character. Leading spaces may be important for the formatting of the resulting text. When importing values from CONT lines, the reader must assume only one delimiter character after the CONT tag. Assume that the rest of the leading spaces must be part of the value.

CORP

BUSINESS

Name of an institution, agency, society, or company.

CREM

CREMATION

Elimination of the mortal remains of a deceased person by fire

CTRY

COUNTRY

The name or code of the country.

DATA

DATA

Related to automated information stored.

DATE

DATE

The date of an event in a calendar format.

DEAT

DEATH

The event of the end of the person's life.

DESC

DESCENDANTS

Related to the offspring of an individual.

DEST

DESTINATION

A system receiving data.

DIV

DIVORCE

An event of dissolution of a marriage by civil action.

DIVF

DIVORCE_FILE

An event of divorce filing by a spouse.

DSCR

PHYSICAL_DESCRIPTION

Physical characteristics of a person, place, or thing.

EDUC

EDUCATION

Indicator of a level of education achieved.

EMAIL

EMAIL

An electronic address that can be used for contact such as an email address...

EMIG

EMIGRATION

An event of leaving one's country of origin with the intention of residing elsewhere.

ENDL

ENDOWMENT

A religious event where an endowment ordinance for an individual has been performed by the authority of the temple priesthood in a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

ENGA

ENGAGED

An event of recording or announcing an agreement between two people to marry.

EVEN

EVENT

A remarkable event linked to an individual, group, or organization

FACT

FACT

Related to an attribute or remarkable fact about an individual, group, or organization. A FACT structure is generally qualified or classified by subordinate use of the TYPE tag.

FAM

FAMILY

Identifies a legal relationship, or any other customary relationship between a man and a woman and their children, if any, or a family created by the birth of a child to his biological parents.

FAMC

FAMILY_CHILD

Identifies the family in which an individual appears as a child.

FAMS

FAMILY_SPOUSE

Identifies the family in which an individual appears as a spouse.

FCOM

FIRST_COMMUNION

A religious rite, the first act of sharing the Lord's Supper during church worship.

FILE

FILE

A place for storing ordered and organized information for preservation and reference.

FORM

FORMAT

Name given to a consistent format in which information can be transmitted.

GEDC

GEDCOM

Information about the use of GEDCOM in a transmission.

GIVN

FIRST_NAME

A given or earned name used for the official identification of a person.

GRAD

GRADUATION

An event of conferring diplomas or degrees to individuals.

HEAD

HEADER

Identifies information related to an entire GEDCOM transmission.

HUSB

HUSBAND

A person in the family role of a married man or father.

IDNO

IDENTIFICATION_NUMBER

A number assigned to identify a person within an important external system.

IMMI

IMMIGRATION

An event of entering a new location with the intention of residing there.

INDI

INDI

A person.

LANG

LANGUAGE

The name of the language used in communication or information transmission.

LATI

LATITUDE

Value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space.

LEGA

LEGATEE

Role of a person acting as a person receiving a legacy or bequest.

LONG

LONGITUDE

Value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space.

MAP

MAP

Refers to a representation of measurements generally presented graphically.

MARB

BANS

An event of official public notice announcing that two people intend to marry.

MARC

MARRIAGE_CONTRACT

An event of recording a formal marriage agreement, including the prenuptial agreement in which the marriage partners reach an agreement on the rights of ownership of one or both, ensuring property to their children.

MARR

MARRIAGE

A legal, customary, or customary event of creating a family unit of a man and a woman as husband and wife.

MEDI

MEDIA

Identifies information about the media or related to the medium in which the information is stored.

NAME

NAME

A word or combination of words used to help identify a person, title, or other element. More than one NAME line must be used for persons known by more than one name.

NATI

NATIONALITY

From the birth country of an individual or from the nationality of his parents.

NATU

NATURALIZATION

The event of obtaining citizenship.

NCHI

NUMBER_OF_CHILDREN

The number of children for whom this person is known to be a parent (all marriages) when subordinate to an individual, or who belong to this family when subordinate to a FAM_RECORD

NICK

NICKNAME

A descriptive or familiar name that is used instead of or in addition to one's own name.

NMR

MARRIAGE_NUMBER

The number of times this person has participated in a family as a spouse or parent.

NOTE

NOTE

Additional information provided by the sender to understand the attached data.

OBJE

OBJECT

Related to a set of attributes used to describe something. Generally refers to the data necessary to represent a multimedia object, such as an audio recording, a photograph of a person, or an image of a document.

OCCU

OCCUPATION

The type of work or profession of an individual.

ORDN

ORDINATION

A religious event in which authority is received to act in religious matters.

PHON

PHONE

A unique number assigned for access to a specific phone.

PLAC

PLACE

A jurisdictional name for identifying the location or site of an event.

POST

ZIP_CODE

Code used by a postal service to identify an area to facilitate mail processing.

PROB

PROBATE

Event of judicial determination of the validity of a will. May indicate several related legal activities at different dates.

PROP

PROPERTY

Relating to possessions such as real estate or other properties of interest.

QUAY

DATA_QUALITY

An evaluation of the certainty of the evidence supporting the conclusion drawn from the evidence.

RELA

RELATION

A relationship value between the contexts indicated.

RELI

RELIGION

A religious confession to which a person is affiliated or for which a file applies.

RESI

RESIDENCE

Action of living at an address for a certain time.

RETI

RETIREMENT

Event of leaving a professional relationship with an employer after a reference period, mostly to cease all professional activity

ROLE

ROLE

Name given to a role played by an individual in relation to an event.

SEX

SEX

Indicates the sex of an individual - male or female.

SOUR

SOURCE

The initial or original material from which information was obtained.

STAE

STATE

Geographical division of a larger jurisdiction area, such as a state within the United States of America.

STAT

STATUS

An assessment of the state or condition of something.

SUBM

AUTHOR

An individual or organization that provides genealogical data to a file or transfers it to someone else.

SURN

SURNAME

A family name transmitted or used by the members of a family.

TIME

TIME

A time value in 24-hour format, including optional hours, minutes, and seconds, separated by two dots (:). Fractions of seconds are displayed in decimal notation.

TITL

TITLE

A description of a specific work or other work, such as the title of a book when used in a source context, or a formal designation used by an individual in relation to positions of royalty or other social status, such as Grand Duke.

TRLR

TRAILER

At level 0, specifies the end of a GEDCOM transmission.

TYPE

TYPE

A supplement to the meaning of the associated higher tag. The value has no computer processing reliability. It is rather a short note of one or two words that must be displayed whenever the associated data is displayed.

VERS

VERSION

Indicates which version of a product, item, or publication is used or referenced.

WIFE

WIFE

A person playing the role of mother and/or married woman.

WILL

WILL

Legal act assimilated to an event, by which a person disposes of his estate, to take effect after his death. The date of the event is the date when the will was signed by the person while alive. (See also PRObate)