How to use the gedcom to csv converter
- Choose a GEDCOM file from your computer, or paste the text of one into the box.
- Check the summary of people, families, birth and death dates and the span of birth years.
- Switch between People and Families to look at each table.
- Download the people CSV and the families CSV, or copy the table you are looking at to paste into a spreadsheet.
What the file contains
A GEDCOM file is a plain text list of numbered lines. A line with level 0 starts a record such as a person (INDI) or a family (FAM), and lines with higher levels hold its details, such as the name, a birth event with a date and a place, and links to the families a person belongs to. The tool reads each person for the given names, surname and suffix, sex, birth and death dates and places, the parents named in the family they were born into, and the number of children.
Each family is read for the husband, the wife, the marriage date and place, whether a divorce is recorded, and the children. Names come from the family records, so if a link points at a person who is not in the file the cell stays empty. Long text that the file splits over several lines is joined again.
Dates, places and the year column
Dates are copied exactly as written, so values such as ABT 1850, BET 1820 AND 1825 or 12 JAN 1900 stay as they are. The year column takes the first number of three or four digits in the date, which is a convenience for sorting and not a judgment about which year is meant. Places are copied as written too, with their commas.
After downloading, a spreadsheet can sort and filter the people, and the CSV Validator can check the file before you import it elsewhere. To change the format use the CSV and JSON Converter, and the Family Tree Maker can draw a tree from names you list. A calendar file has its own converter in the ICS to CSV Converter.
Privacy and limits
The file is read in your browser and is never uploaded. It must be a text file: ZIP archives, PDFs, images, SVG files and files with binary data are turned away with a message, and text longer than 3,000,000 characters is refused. Family trees often include living people, so be careful with where you share the downloaded CSV.
Lines that do not follow the numbered layout are skipped and counted in the summary. Notes, sources, media links and custom tags are not exported, and only the first birth, death and marriage event of a record is used.
Assumptions and limits
- The file uses the GEDCOM 5.x line layout of a level, an optional record id, a tag and a value.
- Only text in UTF-8 or a similar encoding is read. A byte order mark at the start is ignored.
- A person with several names uses the first one, and a person with several birth events uses the first one.
- Nothing is uploaded, and the preview shows the first 100 rows while the downloads hold every row.
Frequently asked questions
Which genealogy programs produce GEDCOM files?
Most family tree programs and websites can export one, usually under a menu item such as Export or Share. The exact name differs between programs.
Why are some parent cells empty?
A person has parents in the table only when they are listed as a child of a family that has a husband or a wife in the file. People at the top of a tree usually have none.
Will it open files from older programs with different encodings?
It reads what the browser can decode as text. If names show odd characters, re-export the file as UTF-8 from the program that made it.
Does the CSV keep living people private?
No. It copies everything in the file for the fields listed. Remove or mask records of living people before you share the result.