This page is not here to provide a definitive guide to using I.T. for Family History Research, I'm pretty sure no such page exists as things are changing all the time. I certainly don't have the knowledge to write such a page.

What I can and will do is to use this page for noting some of the tip, tricks and hopefully useful facts about I.T. and Family History Research.

.GED Files

If you have done any Family History Research then it's odds on that you've heard of a GED or GEDCOM file, but do you know what it is. Well, GED or Gedcom (GEnealogical Data COMmunication) is supposedly the standard file is which to store and exchange Genealogical Data. It was developed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints back in 1984 and was regularly updated until 1996 when version 5.5 was finalised. I say supposedly because unfortunately almost every Genealogical Program uses it own slightly tweaked version of the GEDCOM standard, never the less it remains the common data format used for the exchange of data. The great advantage it has over all other genealogical data files is that it's pure text, very small and widely recognised. Just don't expect all the data to be transferred from one file to another.

I have prepared some guides for creating GED files from various common Online and Offline programs which I hope will be helpful.
Ancestry
MyHeritage
Family Tree Maker
RootsMagic
Family Tree Builder
Legacy
PAF