Family Historian uses the GEDCOMGEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software. It is a file format that most genealogical programs and online trees recognise. data structure for its records, which is similar to many other genealogy products.

Data is stored using the following main record types:

• Individual RecordsEvery person in your tree will have a single Individual Record, which holds all the information about that individual that you have entered.  You can view and edit Individual records in the Property Box Dialogue. ~ Hold factsFacts are one of the key concepts at the heart of Family Historian; they are how you record the things that happened to, or described, each ancestor (Individual). about each person such as Name, Birth & Death
• Family RecordsFamily records store information about families, and links to all the Individual Records for those individuals who make up a family. You can view and edit Family records in the Property Box Dialogue. ~ Hold parent child relationships and family facts such as Marriage
• Source RecordsSource: “where information was found”. This could be anything from an archive in a county records office, a book, or even a relative’s recorded recollection. Citing your Sources helps to show how you reached a particular conclusion about an Individual. ~ Hold source document details cited by the facts
• Repository RecordsA repository is a place (physical or online) where collections of original source data are stored and maintained. ~ Hold details of source document repositories
• Note RecordsFamily Historian version 6 and below supports two types of Notes: Local notes (associated with a single person, record, or fact); and Shared Notes or Note Records, that can be linked to multiple records and/or facts. Version 7 introduced Research ~ Hold general notes shared by multiple records
• Multimedia RecordsWhen you add a picture, video, sound recording, document file etc into a Family Historian project, a Media record is created to represent that media item within the project; the Media record includes a link to the actual Media file. ~ Hold details of external media files such as photos and documents
• Place RecordsAccording to GEDCOM, a Place should hold “The jurisdictional name of the place where the event took place…”   ~ Hold place name details such as latitude & longitude (only in V6 or later)

These all inter-relate by using data fields to link the records together. The diagram below shows some of the ways which records can be linked together to store your family history information.

Facts are included on the diagram although they are not actually held as records in their own right. CitationsA link between a source and a fact, documenting Where within the source you find information being “cited” to support the fact/conclusion. are also not records in their own right, but are used to connect many of the other records to Sources, so are included to make the relationships clearer.

Note Records are linked to other records where local Note fields are allowed.

Place Records were introduced in Version 6, and are linked to each Place field by Name rather than Record IdEvery record in Family Historian has a numeric Record ID, which uniquely identifies it within its type of record..

In addition there are Header Record, Submitter Record and Submission Record types.

The last two pages of the GEDCOM Standard Release 5.5 specification has a GEDCOM 5.5 DATA MODEL CHART that illustrates the full data structure, which is formally defined within the linear-linked grammar on the earlier pages. Family Historian implements that data model, but with allowed customisations as defined by the GEDCOM Extension List.