GEDCOM to CSV/JSON Converter

Convert GEDCOM (.ged) genealogy files to CSV or JSON. Extract individuals, families, birth/death dates, places, and parent relationships from your family tree data.

1.0.0
Version
Auth
Batch

About GEDCOM to CSV/JSON Converter

Genealogy software hoards your data in .ged — a 1980s line-oriented format that every family-tree app reads but nothing else does. Want to drop the 4,000 individuals you've researched on Ancestry, MyHeritage or FamilySearch into Excel for a one-page chart? Or into Notion or Airtable for a side project? Or into pandas to look for patterns? The official path is to install Gramps or Family Tree Builder, import the file, and click through an export wizard — workshop-sized effort for a workshop-sized one-page task.

This GEDCOM converter parses your .ged file with the python-gedcom library and gives you two outputs you can actually use. CSV opens directly in Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice with one row per individual — name, given name, surname, sex, birth date, birth place, death date, death place, occupation, plus the GEDCOM @I123@ pointer and the resolved father/mother pointers so you can rebuild relationships with a couple of VLOOKUPs. JSON is the same plus a parallel family-block array (husband, wife, marriage date, marriage place, child pointers) — ready for pandas, jq, Node or any other downstream script. The parser is permissive (strict=False) so it handles GEDCOM 5.5, 5.5.1 and the slightly-off exports from major genealogy services.

Use it to drop a tree into Excel for a printed family chart, build a Notion or Airtable companion view for your research notes, audit a GEDCOM export for missing dates before importing into a new tool, migrate between genealogy apps that disagree on which dialect to support, or feed family data into a Streamlit dashboard or a static-site generator. Files up to 20 MB are processed in a stateless serverless function and discarded immediately after the response.

GEDCOM to CSV/JSON Converter Use Cases

  • Hobby genealogists exporting an Ancestry or MyHeritage tree into Excel for a printed chart
  • Building a Notion or Airtable companion database alongside genealogy notes
  • Migrating a family tree between apps that disagree on GEDCOM dialect
  • Auditing a GEDCOM export for missing dates or orphaned individuals before reimporting
  • Loading genealogy data into pandas, R or Tableau for ancestry statistics
  • Filtering a large GEDCOM down to a single branch via a spreadsheet pivot
  • Family history publishing pipelines that need machine-readable JSON, not GEDCOM

GEDCOM to CSV/JSON Converter Features

  • Parses GEDCOM 5.5 and 5.5.1 with permissive mode (strict=False) so slightly-off exports from major genealogy services still convert
  • CSV output with one row per individual — name, given, surname, sex, birth/death date and place, occupation, GEDCOM pointer, parent pointers
  • JSON output adds a parallel families array with husband, wife, marriage date, marriage place and child pointer lists
  • Resolves parent-child relationships during parsing so the CSV carries father and mother pointers ready for VLOOKUP
  • Handles .ged and .gedcom extensions and the variations encoded by Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch and Gramps exports
  • Pure server-side python-gedcom parser — no install for the user, no platform-specific quirks
  • Files up to 20 MB processed in a stateless serverless function and discarded immediately after the response

How to Use GEDCOM to CSV/JSON Converter

Upload your .ged file

Drag-and-drop or click to select a GEDCOM export (up to 20 MB). Both .ged and .gedcom extensions are accepted. Files exported from Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, Gramps and Family Tree Builder all use the same underlying format.

Pick CSV or JSON output

Choose CSV if your destination is Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice or a printed chart — one row per individual. Choose JSON if you're feeding pandas, jq, Node, Airtable or a static-site generator — you also get the parallel families array.

Click Convert

The parser walks the GEDCOM record tree, builds the family lookup, resolves parent pointers for every individual, and writes either CSV (UTF-8 BOM, Excel-ready) or JSON in one pass. Typically under a second for trees of a few thousand individuals.

Review the structure

Preview shows the first individuals plus a count of individuals and families parsed. Confirm dates and place names didn't get garbled — non-ASCII names should appear in their original characters.

Download the file

Save the CSV or JSON. CSV opens straight in Excel without an import wizard (UTF-8 BOM included). JSON loads with json.load in Python or fetch().then(r => r.json()) in the browser.

GEDCOM to CSV/JSON Converter FAQ

No. The file is processed in a stateless serverless function and deleted immediately after the response is sent. Nothing is logged to durable storage. A GEDCOM contains private information about living relatives, so this is the only sensible default. If you're working with a strictly confidential tree, run python-gedcom locally.

20 MB. This comfortably covers trees with several thousand individuals and tens of thousands of events — the upper end of what most hobbyist trees grow to. For larger professional or aggregated trees, split by branch or use python-gedcom in a local script.

GEDCOM 5.5 and 5.5.1 (the dialects every major genealogy service exports) are parsed in permissive mode (strict=False), so the slightly-off variations from Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, Gramps and Family Tree Builder all work. GEDCOM 7.x (the newer FamilySearch GEDCOM X JSON dialect) is not directly handled — export as 5.5.1 first.

Name (full and split into given name + surname), sex, birth date and place, death date and place, occupation, the GEDCOM @I123@ pointer, and the resolved father and mother pointers (the parent-child relationship walk happens during parsing). Source citations, custom tags and multimedia references are not pulled into the table — for those, the JSON output contains enough metadata to extend.

JSON returns an object with two arrays: individuals (the same fields as the CSV) and families (husband pointer, wife pointer, marriage date, marriage place, child pointer list). Pointers stay in @F123@ / @I456@ form so you can join the two arrays in pandas or any downstream tool. CSV is flatter — one row per person — which is the shape you usually want for Excel.

Gramps is a full genealogy application — overkill for single-file conversions, requires desktop install. convert.guru handles the same format but doesn't expose the resolved parent pointers in CSV, which means you rebuild relationships by hand. This tool's CSV ships with father and mother columns pre-resolved so VLOOKUPs work out of the box. For day-to-day research, keep Gramps; for spreadsheet exports, use this.

Yes. The CSV is written with a UTF-8 BOM, so Excel auto-detects the encoding on double-click and non-ASCII names (umlauts, Chinese characters, Cyrillic) render correctly on first open. No 'Data → From Text' import wizard is needed. Google Sheets and LibreOffice handle the BOM the same way.

Upload your GEDCOM file

.ged or .gedcom • Max 20MB

Requires login • 1 credit

GEDCOM to CSV/JSON Converter Tutorial

What is GEDCOM?

GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunication) is the standard file format for exchanging genealogical data between family tree software. Programs like Ancestry, MyHeritage, Gramps, and FamilySearch all export to GEDCOM (.ged) format.

What Gets Extracted?

  • Individuals: Name, sex, birth/death date & place, occupation
  • Relationships: Father, mother (resolved from family records)
  • Families: Husband, wife, marriage date & place, children

CSV Output Columns

id, name, given_name, surname, sex, birth_date, birth_place, death_date, death_place, father_id, father_name, mother_id, mother_name, occupation, note
Common Use Cases
  • Import family tree data into Excel or Google Sheets
  • Migrate between genealogy platforms
  • Create custom family tree visualizations
  • Data analysis on ancestry records
  • Back up genealogy data in universal format

Where to Get GEDCOM Files

  • Ancestry.com — Settings → Family Tree → Export Tree
  • MyHeritage — Family Tree → Export to GEDCOM
  • FamilySearch — Tree → Download GEDCOM
  • Gramps — Export → GEDCOM