gedcomS7

The goal of gedcomS7 is to handle genealogical data as GEDCOM files. This package succeeds the tidyged package and many of the other packages in the gedcompendium. The key changes are:

• The package is designed to work with GEDCOM 7.0, rather than 5.5.5.
• The package has minimal dependencies; currently only one: S7.
• GEDCOM files are stored as S7 objects rather than dataframes.
• The package contains all functionality to create, edit, and interrogate GEDCOM files.

Installation

You can install the development version of gedcomS7 from GitHub with:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("jl5000/gedcomS7")

Key limitations

When importing existing GEDCOM files, you should ensure that they are error free. This package assumes imported GEDCOM files are valid and very few validation checks are carried out. Several GEDCOM validators are available, including an online validator at https://ged-inline.org/.

The package does not currently support extension tags. If you import a file with these features, the package may behave unpredictably.

It can be quite cumbersome manipulating GEDCOM files using this package at the command line. Ideally, the package would have a shiny app interface, and this is a longer term aspiration.

Example

GEDCOM files can be imported (with read_gedcom()) or created from scratch, creating an S7 object representation:

library(gedcomS7)

ged <- new_gedcom()
ged
#> GEDCOM file summary:
#>  
#> GEDCOM version:         7.0
#> Creation Date:          7 JAN 2025
#> Default Language:       en
#> 
#> Copyright:              <Undefined>
#> 
#> Source system:          gedcomS7
#> Product name:           The 'gedcomS7' package for the R language
#> Source system version:  <Undefined>
#> 
#> Submitters:             0
#> Individuals:            0
#> Families:               0
#> Sources:                0
#> Repositories:           0
#> Multimedia:             0
#> Notes:                  0

The metadata for the gedcom object (ged@…) can be modified.

ged@header@notes <- "This file contains my family tree"
ged@header@gedcom_copyright <- "Copyright Jamie Lendrum 2023"
ged
#> GEDCOM file summary:
#>  
#> GEDCOM version:         7.0
#> Creation Date:          7 JAN 2025
#> Default Language:       en
#> 
#> Copyright:              Copyright Jamie Lendrum 2023
#> 
#> Source system:          gedcomS7
#> Product name:           The 'gedcomS7' package for the R language
#> Source system version:  <Undefined>
#> 
#> Submitters:             0
#> Individuals:            0
#> Families:               0
#> Sources:                0
#> Repositories:           0
#> Multimedia:             0
#> Notes:                  0

New records can be created and ‘pushed’ to the GEDCOM object:

subm_record <- SubmitterRecord(subm_name = "Jamie Lendrum")
indi_record <- IndividualRecord(sex = "M",
                                pers_names = PersonalName("Joe /Bloggs/"))
sour_record <- SourceRecord(full_title = "Census of England and Wales, 1921")

ged <- ged |> 
  push_record(subm_record) |> 
  push_record(indi_record) |> 
  push_record(sour_record)
#> New Submitter record added with xref @U1@
#> New Individual record added with xref @I1@
#> New Source record added with xref @S1@

ged@records
#> Submitters:             1
#> Individuals:            1
#> Families:               0
#> Sources:                1
#> Repositories:           0
#> Multimedia:             0
#> Notes:                  0

Existing records, must be ‘pulled’ from the object, edited, and then ‘pushed’ back.

joe_bloggs <- pull_record(ged, "@I1@")
joe_bloggs@notes <- "He had a dog called Rover"
ged <- push_record(ged, joe_bloggs)

The entire GEDCOM representation can be seen with the @GEDCOM property:

ged@GEDCOM
#>  [1] "0 HEAD"                                          
#>  [2] "1 GEDC"                                          
#>  [3] "2 VERS 7.0"                                      
#>  [4] "1 SOUR gedcomS7"                                 
#>  [5] "2 NAME The 'gedcomS7' package for the R language"
#>  [6] "2 CORP Jamie Lendrum"                            
#>  [7] "3 EMAIL [email protected]"                     
#>  [8] "1 DATE 7 JAN 2025"                               
#>  [9] "1 COPR Copyright Jamie Lendrum 2023"             
#> [10] "1 LANG en"                                       
#> [11] "1 NOTE This file contains my family tree"        
#> [12] "0 @U1@ SUBM"                                     
#> [13] "1 NAME Jamie Lendrum"                            
#> [14] "0 @I1@ INDI"                                     
#> [15] "1 NAME Joe /Bloggs/"                             
#> [16] "1 SEX M"                                         
#> [17] "1 NOTE He had a dog called Rover"                
#> [18] "0 @S1@ SOUR"                                     
#> [19] "1 TITL Census of England and Wales, 1921"        
#> [20] "0 TRLR"

The object can be exported to a GEDCOM file:

write_gedcom(ged, "my_gedcom.ged")

References

1. The FamilySearch GEDCOM Specification, Prepared by the Family History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://gedcom.io/specifications/FamilySearchGEDCOMv7.html

Notice

This work comprises, is based on, or is derived from the FAMILYSEARCH GEDCOM™ Specification, © 1984-2023 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

“FAMILYSEARCH GEDCOM™” and “FAMILYSEARCH®” are trademarks of Intellectual Reserve, Inc. and may not be used except as allowed by the Apache 2.0 license that governs this work or as expressly authorized in writing and in advance by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.