GEDCOM is an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication. It is a data transmission standard developed by the LDS church, Mormons, for moving data between different genealogy programs.

It is an old standard and not maintained. There are some efforts for an new standard.

The issues with it are that it is not designed to deal with certain types of data or conclusions.

It is helpful in that it is a text file and you can make sense of it by reading it.

The best use of it is for sharing data with other researchers who are researching one or more of your family lines. It is also a good backup. If you backup your database to GEDCOM periodically and have it in a safe place, if your computer dies, you can import it into a new program without data lose. This is in addition to backing up your genealogy program’s native database format.

GEDCOM is also used for the various popular genealogy websites to upload your data to them, and you can download GEDCOMs from them.

Be careful with downloading GEDCOMs from online sources as it is up to you to verify the information in them is accurate. If you merge a gad GEDCOM into your database, you cannot “un-merge” it. This illustrates the importance of frequent and verified backups.

A verified backup is one that you have tested and know that it can be used to restore your data.