GEDCOM 5.5.1 vs 7.0: Key Differences, Media, and Portability

For nearly thirty years, GEDCOM 5.5.1 has served as the universal lingua franca of genealogical research. Every major genealogy platform — from Ancestry and FamilySearch to MyHeritage, RootsMagic, and Gramps — relies on GEDCOM to import and export family records.

In recent years, FamilySearch released GEDCOM 7.0, introducing modern data structures and file packaging. But how do the two versions actually differ? What happens to your photos and citations when migrating? And why is GEDCOM 5.5.1 still the dominant format in practice?

Here is the technical breakdown every family historian should understand.

Direct Answer: Key Differences at a Glance

| Feature | GEDCOM 5.5.1 (1999) | GEDCOM 7.0 (2021+) | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Character Encoding | ANSEL, ASCII, or UTF-8 | UTF-8 Only (Mandatory) | | Photo & Media Handling| External file path references | GEDZ ZIP Packaging (Bundled media) | | Same-Sex Relationships| Unofficial tags or hacks | Native semantic support | | Industry Adoption | Universal (99%+ of tools) | Growing, but partial support | | File Format | Plain text .ged | Plain text .ged or compressed .gedz |

1. Character Encoding: Why Names Get Corrupted

The biggest pain point in GEDCOM 5.5.1 was character encoding:

• Older programs often exported in ANSEL or ASCII, which scrambled non-Latin characters. An ancestor named Müller became M?ller, and Arabic or Bengali names turned into strings of question marks.
• GEDCOM 7.0 eliminates legacy encodings entirely, mandating UTF-8 as the sole standard.

In Blaadline's GEDCOM viewer, our parser auto-detects UTF-8, ANSEL, and ASCII encodings upon upload, ensuring that diacritics and non-Latin scripts (Arabic, Bengali, Cyrillic) display accurately without manual file conversion.

2. Media & Photos: The .ged vs .gedz Dilemma

One of the most common user frustrations when exporting from Ancestry or MyHeritage is discovering that downloaded .ged files do not actually contain the photographs:

• In GEDCOM 5.5.1, photos are recorded as external system file paths (e.g., FILE C:\MyPhotos\portrait.jpg). When you send that file to another person or software, the photos don't accompany it.
• In GEDCOM 7.0, the standard introduces GEDZ files — a standard ZIP archive containing the .ged data structure alongside all attached JPG and PNG images.

While GEDZ is superior for archiving, many legacy tools cannot unpack it yet. When moving files between platforms, standard GEDCOM 5.5.1 with manual photo attachment remains the most reliable cross-platform pipeline.

3. Data Portability: Why 5.5.1 Remains the Industry Standard

Despite the release of version 7.0, GEDCOM 5.5.1 remains the practical standard for one simple reason: universal interoperability.

If you export a tree from Ancestry, FamilySearch, or WikiTree, you will almost certainly receive a GEDCOM 5.5.1 file. Until every major software vendor updates their legacy import parsers, GEDCOM 5.5.1 ensures that your family data can never be held hostage by a single proprietary vendor.

How Blaadline Handles Your GEDCOM Files

Blaadline treats data portability as a core principle:

• Free Import & Export: You can import any GEDCOM 5.5 or 5.5.1 file to generate an interactive family tree, and export your data back out as GEDCOM at any time without fees.
• Client-Side Privacy: When previewing a GEDCOM file in our free viewer, parsing happens right inside your web browser.
• True Vector Printing: Convert raw GEDCOM files into print-ready vector PDFs that scale cleanly to any size.

Want to open and explore your GEDCOM file right now? Use our free online GEDCOM viewer or read our beginner guide on how to open a GEDCOM file.