Documentation

Import and Export

Import GEDCOM 5.5 or 5.5.1 files into Rooted and export family tree data as GEDCOM 7.

Supported formats

Rooted imports GEDCOM 5.5 and 5.5.1 .ged files into an existing tree. Rooted exports GEDCOM 7 .ged files for portability to other genealogy tools.

Who can import or export

Import and export are admin-only tree actions because they can expose or create large amounts of family data. Tree admins and owners can use the Data menu from the tree header or tree card.

What imports

The importer reads individuals, families, names, sex values, birth and death dates, birth and death places, notes, parent-child links, spouse links, and media file references. Import is append-only in the first version: Rooted shows possible duplicates during preview, but applying an import creates new people and relationships rather than merging into existing records.

Rooted requires every person to have male or female sex selected. If a GEDCOM person is missing a sex value, uses U, or uses an unsupported value, the import preview asks an admin to choose before the import can be applied.

What exports

GEDCOM 7 export includes people, names, sex values, birth and death dates, birth and death places, notes when enabled, profile photo URL references when enabled, parent-child families, and spouse families.

Rooted stores historical dates as independently known year, month, and day parts. Export writes exact GEDCOM dates only for date parts that GEDCOM can represent without inventing precision. If a month or day is known without a year, Rooted keeps that information as a note instead of pretending the year is known.

Media limitations

GEDCOM export references profile photo URLs when that option is enabled. It does not package image binaries. GEDZIP and local media-folder import are not part of the first import/export version.

Current non-goals

The first import/export version does not merge people automatically, import GEDZIP archives, fetch local media paths, or fully model GEDCOM sources, citations, repositories, residence events, occupation events, immigration events, military events, or custom events. Unsupported tags are reported during preview and stored with import audit records so they can be mapped in future versions.