Tags

A tag is a property type identifyer.

The Gedcom standard defines a number of tags on three or four capital letters, taken from the English name of the property type.

For example, knowing that the SURN label means surname, the SURN Martin property line can be translated as: the surname is "Martin".

Ancestris assigns an icon to each property, just like with entities. For example, Ancestris adds to the NAME tag.

You will find in this page the list of most common tags.

The Gedcom editor is the Ancestris window that shows best all the properties in your genealogy.

 

Icons

The icon next to a tag helps you know whether the tag complies to the Gedcom standard or not.

• , , , , , etc. : regular pre-defined tags. Therefore they are compliant with the Gedcom standard.
• : unknown tag, or at the wrong place.
• : user-defined tag : tags starting with the underscore "_" are user-defined tags. These tags can be added underneath any other tag in the Gedcom file. They are allowed.
  • However, before creating a new tag, please check if the type of information is not already defined by the Gedcom standard. This will allow you to better exchange genealogical data. You can check predefined tag using the Gedcom editor.
  • You may tell Ancestris, in the Preferences, when you use the Gedcom validation tool, whether to consider user-defined tags as erroneous or allowed.
  • On rare occasions, Ancestris had to defined user-defined tags when the Gedcom standard did not plan for it (e.g. _SOSA for the SOSA numbering)
• : indicates a correct tag with an invalid value.
• , , : navigation tags: the " " symbol on the icon is specific to Ancestris and indicates a pointer to another entity. You can navigate to the entity indicated in this tag by jut clicking on it.

Main predefined tags

All the Gedcom standards tags are managed by Ancestris: all the pre-defined Gedcom tags, all the user-defined tags() that Ancestris has defined (e.g._SOSA), and all the user-defined tags you may have defined.

This first table is a description of the main tags.

	Tag name	Tag	5.5.	5.5.1.	Description and usage
	Abbreviation	ABBR	X	X	A short name of a title, description, or name.
	Adoption	ADOP	X	X	Pertaining to creation of a legally approved child-parent relationship that does not exist biologically.
	Address	ADDR	X	X	The contemporary place, usually required for postal purposes, of an individual, a submitter of information, a repository, a business, a school, or a company.
	Age	AGE	X	X	The age of the individual at the time an event occurred, or the age listed in the document.
	Agency	AGNC	X	X	The institution or individual having authority and/or responsibility to manage or govern.
	Alias	ALIA	X	X	An indicator to link different record descriptions of a person who may be the same person.
	Annulment	ANUL	X	X	Declaring a marriage void from the beginning (never existed).
	Associates	ASSO	X	X	An indicator to link friends, neighbours, relatives, or associates of an individual.
	Author	AUTH	X	X	The name of the individual who created or compiled information.
	Marriage Bann	MARB	X	X	An event of an official public notice given that two people intend to marry.
	Christening	CHR	X	X	The religious event (not LDS) of baptising and/or naming a child.
	Baptism	BAPM	X	X	The event of baptism (not LDS), performed in infancy or later.
	Bar Mitzvah	BARM	X	X	The ceremonial event held when a Jewish boy reaches age 13.
	Bas Mitzvah	BASM	X	X	The ceremonial event held when a Jewish girl reaches age 13, also known as "Bat Mitzvah."
	Blessing	BLES	X	X	A religious event of bestowing divine care or intercession. Sometimes given in connection with a naming ceremony.
	Map	_MAP	X		Anticipation of the 5.5.1 dstandard. Pertains to a representation of measurements usually presented in a graphical form.
	Map	MAP		X	Pertains to a representation of measurements usually presented in a graphical form.
	Marriage license	MARL	X	X	An event of obtaining a legal license to marry.
	Change	CHAN	X	X	Indicates a change, correction, or modification. Typically used in connection with a DATE to specify when a change in information occurred (it is automatically handled by Ancestris)
	Postal code	POST	X	X	A code used by a postal service to identify an area to facilitate mail handling.
	Status	STAT	X	X	An assessment of the state or condition of something.
	Confirmation	CONF	X	X	The religious event (not LDS) of conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost and, among protestants, full church membership.
	Marriage contract	MARC	X	X	An event of recording a formal agreement of marriage, including the prenuptial agreement in which marriage partners reach agreement about the property rights of one or both, securing property to their children.
	Marriage settlement	MARS	X	X	An event of creating an agreement between two people contemplating marriage, at which time they agree to release or modify property rights that would otherwise arise from the marriage.
	Cremation	CREM	X	X	Disposal of the remains of a person's body by fire.
	Daboville	_DABOVILLE	X	X	Special. It is not defined in the Gedcom format. It is used in Ancestris to generate the Daboville numbering for a descending genealogy.
	Date	DATE	X	X	The time of an event in a calendar format.
	Death	DEAT	X	X	The event when mortal life terminates.
	Graduation	GRAD	X	X	An event of awarding educational diplomas or degrees to individuals.
	Divorce	DIV	X	X	An event of dissolving a marriage through civil action.
	Data	DATA	X	X	Pertaining to stored automated information.
	E-mail	_EMAI	X		Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. An electronic mail address.
	E-mail	EMAI		X	Gedcom 5.5.1 only. An electronic mail address.
	Child	CHIL	X	X	The natural, adopted, or sealed (LDS) child of a father and a mother.
	Multimedia element	OBJE	X	X	Pertaining to a grouping of attributes used in describing something. Usually referring to the data required to represent a multimedia object, such an audio recording, a photograph of a person, or an image of a document.
	Emigration	EMIG	X	X	An event of leaving one's homeland with the intent of residing elsewhere.
	Wife	WIFE	X	X	An individual in the role as a mother and/or married woman.
	State	STAE	X	X	A geographical division of a larger jurisdictional area, such as a State within the United States of America.
	Event	EVEN	X	X	Pertaining to a noteworthy happening related to an individual, a group, or an organization. An EVENt structure is usually qualified or classified by a subordinate use of the TYPE tag.
	Family	FAM	X	X	Identifies a legal, common law, or other customary relationship of man and woman and their children, if any, or a family created by virtue of the birth of a child to its biological father and mother.
	Family where person is a child	FAMC	X	X	Identifies the family in which an individual appears as a child.
	Family where person is a spouse	FAMS	X	X	Identifies the family in which an individual appears as a spouse.
	Engagement	ENGA	X	X	An event of recording or announcing an agreement between two people to become married.
	File	FILE	X	X	An information storage place that is ordered and arranged for preservation and reference.
	Format	FORM	X	X	An assigned name given to a consistent format in which information can be conveyed.
	Submitter	SUBM	X	X	An individual or organization who contributes genealogical data to a file or transfers it to someone else.
	Individual	INDI	X	X	A person.
	Immigration	IMMI	X	X	An event of entering into a new locality with the intent of residing there.
	Burial	BURI	X	X	The event of the proper disposing of the mortal remains of a deceased person.
	Ancestor interest	ANCI	X	X	Indicates an interest in additional research for ancestors of this individual.
	Descendants interest	DESI	X	X	Indicates an interest in research to identify additional descendants of this individual.
	Language	LANG	X	X	The name of the language used in a communication or transmission of information.
	Latitude	_LATI	X		Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. A value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space.
	Latitude	LATI		X	A value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space.
	Place	PLAC	X	X	A jurisdictional name to identify the place or location of an event.
	Repository	REPO	X	X	An institution or person that has the specified item as part of their collection(s).
	Longitude	_LONG	X		Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. A value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space.
	Longitude	LONG		X	A value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space.
	Husband	HUSB	X	X	An individual in the family role of a married man or father.
	Marriage	MARR	X	X	A legal, common-law, or customary event of creating a family unit of a man and a woman as husband and wife.
	Birth	BIRT	X	X	The event of entering into life.
	Nationality	NATI	X	X	The national heritage of an individual.
	Naturalisation	NATU	X	X	The event of obtaining citizenship.
	Education	EDUC	X	X	Indicator of a level of education attained.
	Name	NAME	X	X	A word or combination of words used to help identify an individual, title, or other item. More than one NAME line should be used for people who were known by multiple names.
	Surname	SURN	X	X	A family name passed on or used by members of a family.
	Number of children	NCHI	X	X	The number of children that this person is known to be the parent of (all marriages) when subordinate to an individual, or that belong to this family when subordinate to a FAM_RECORD.
	Number of marriages	NMR	X	X	The number of times this person has participated in a family as a spouse or parent.
	Note	NOTE	X	X	Additional information provided by the submitter for understanding the enclosing data.
	Identification number	IDNO	X	X	A number assigned to identify a person within some significant external system.
	Social security number	SSN	X	X	A number assigned by the United States Social Security Administration. Used for tax identification purposes.
	Binary object	BLOB	X		Set of data entered into a multimedia system that processes binary data to represent images, sound, video.
	Ordination	ORDN	X	X	A religious event of receiving authority to act in religious matters.
	Page	PAGE	X	X	A number or description to identify where information can be found in a referenced work.
	Country	CTRY	X	X	The name or code of the country.
	Pedigree	PEDI	X	X	Information pertaining to an individual to parent lineage chart.
	Name prefix	NPFX	X	X	Text which appears on a name line before the given and surname parts of a name. i.e. (Lt. Cmndr.) Joseph /Allen/ jr. In this example Lt. Cmndr. is considered as the name prefix portion.
	Surname prefix	SPFX	X	X	A name piece used as a non-indexing pre-part of a surname.
	Given name	GIVN	X	X	A given or earned name used for official identification of a person.
	First communion	FCOM	X	X	A religious rite, the first act of sharing in the Lord's supper as part of church worship..
	Private	_PRIV	X	X	Special. It is not defined in the Gedcom format. It is used in Ancestris to mark individuals or events defined as private (private data in preferences tools).
	Occupation	OCCU	X	X	The type of work or profession of an individual.
	Publication	PUBL	X	X	Refers to when and/or where a work was published or created.
	Quality	QUAY	X	X	An assessment of the certainty of the evidence to support the conclusion drawn from evidence.
	Cause	CAUS	X	X	A description of the cause of the associated event or fact, such as the cause of death.
	Census	CENS	X	X	The event of the periodic count of the population for a designated locality, such as a national or state Census.
	Religion	RELI	X	X	A religious denomination to which a person is affiliated or for which a record applies.
	Divorced filed	DIVF	X	X	An event of filing for a divorce by a spouse.
	Retirement	RETI	X	X	An event of exiting an occupational relationship with an employer after a qualifying time period.
	Reference	REFN	X	X	A description or number used to identify an item for filing, storage, or other reference purposes.
	Relation	RELA	X	X	A relationship value between the indicated contexts.
	Residence	RESI	X	X	An address or place of residence that a family or individual resided.
	Role	ROLE	X	X	A name given to a role played by an individual in connection with an event.
	Sex	SEX	X	X	Indicates the sex of an individual--male or female or unknown.
	Sosa	_SOSA _SOSADABOVILLE	X	X	Special. It is not defined in the Gedcom format. It is used in Ancestris to generate the Sosa or Sosa d'Aboville numbering for a person's ancestors and descendants.
	Source	SOUR	X	X	The initial or original material from which information was obtained.
	Name suffix	NSFX	X	X	Text which appears on a name line after or behind the given and surname parts of a name. i.e. Lt. Cmndr. Joseph /Allen/ (jr.) In this example jr. is considered as the name suffix portion.
	Nickname	NICK	X	X	A descriptive or familiar that is used instead of, or in addition to, one's proper name.
	Phone	PHON	X	X	A unique number assigned to access a specific telephone.
	Temple	TEMP	X	X	The name or code that represents the name of an LDS Church Temple.
	Will	WILL	X	X	A legal document treated as an event, by which a person disposes of his or her estate, to take effect after death. The event date is the date the will was signed while the person was alive.
	Text	TEXT	X	X	The exact wording found in an original source document.
	Title	TITL	X	X	A description of a specific writing or other work, such as the title of a book when used in a source context, or a formal designation used by an individual in connection with positions of royalty or other social status, such as Grand Duke.
	Type	TYPE	X	X	A further qualification to the meaning of the associated superior tag. The value does not have any computer processing reliability. It is more in the form of a short one or two word note that should be displayed any time the associated data is displayed.
	Probation	PROB	X	X	An event of judicial determination of the validity of a will. May indicate several related court activities over several dates.
	City	CITY	X	X	A lower level jurisdictional unit. Normally an incorporated municipal unit.
	Internet web site	_WWW	X		Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. World Wide Web home page.
	Internet web site	WWW		X	World Wide Web home page.

Other predefined tags

Many other tags can also be managed with Ancestris by adding them via the Gedcom Editor.

	Tag name	Tag	5.5.	5.5.1.	Description and Usage
	Address1	ADR1	X	X	The first line of an address.
	Address2	ADR2	X	X	The second line of an address.
	Ancestral File Number	AFN	X	X	A unique permanent record file number of an individual record stored in Ancestral File.
	Baptême LSD	BAPL	X	X	The event of baptism performed at age eight or later by priesthood authority of the LDS Church.
	Call number	CALN	X	X	The number used by a repository to identify the specific items in its collections.
	Confirmation LDS	CONL	X	X	The religious event by which a person receives membership in the LDS Church.
	Caste	CAST	X	X	The name of an individual's rank or status in society which is sometimes based on racial or religious differences, or differences in wealth, inherited rank, profession, occupation, etc.
	Adult christining	CHRA	X	X	The religious event (not LDS) of baptising and/or naming an adult person.
	Physical description	DSCR	X	X	The physical characteristics of a person, place, or thing.
	Endowment LDS	ENDL	X	X	A religious event where an endowment ordinance for an individual was performed by priesthood authority in an LDS temple.
	Media	MEDI	X	X	Identifies information about the media or having to do with the medium in which information is stored.
	Property	PROP	X	X	Pertaining to possessions such as real estate or other property of interest.
	Restriction	RESN	X	X	A processing indicator signifying access to information has been denied or otherwise restricted.
	Record File Number	RFN	X	X	A permanent number assigned to a record that uniquely identifies it within a known file.
	Record Identification Number	RIN	X	X	A number assigned to a record by an originating automated system that can be used by a receiving system to report results pertaining to that record.
	Sealing Child	SLGC	X	X	A religious event pertaining to the sealing of a child to his or her parents in an LDS temple ceremony.
	Sealing Spouse	SLGS	X	X	A religious event pertaining to the sealing of a husband and wife in an LDS temple ceremony.

Accepted Tags

Gedcom tags not offered by the Gedcom editor but accepted by Ancestris are internal tags in the Gedcom file.

They are in the header of the file, except for HEAD and TRLR. They can be visible when opening your Gedcom file in a simple text editor.

	Tag name	Tag	5.5.	5.5.1.	Description and Usage
	Ancestors	ANCE	X	X	Pertaining to forbearers of an individual.
	Character	CHAR	X	X	An indicator of the character set used in writing this automated information.
	Concatenation	CONC	X	X	An indicator that additional data belongs to the superior value. The information from the CONC value is to be connected to the value of the superior preceding line without a space and without a carriage return and/or new line character. Values that are split for a CONC tag must always be split at a non-space. If the value is split on a space the space will be lost when concatenation takes place. This is because of the treatment that spaces get as a GEDCOM delimiter, many GEDCOM values are trimmed 85 of trailing spaces and some systems look for the first non-space starting after the tag to determine the beginning of the value (it is handle automatically by Ancestris)
	Continuation	CONT	X	X	An indicator that additional data belongs to the superior value. The information from the CONT value is to be connected to the value of the superior preceding line with a carriage return and/or new line character. Leading spaces could be important to the formatting of the resultant text. When importing values from CONT lines the reader should assume only one delimiter character following the CONT tag. Assume that the rest of the leading spaces are to be a part of the value (it is handle automatically by Ancestris)
	Copyright	COPR	X	X	A statement that accompanies data to protect it from unlawful duplication and distribution.
	Corporate	CORP	X	X	A name of an institution, agency, corporation, or company.
	Descent	DESC	X	X	Pertaining to offspring of an individual.
	Destination	DEST	X	X	A system receiving data.
	Family File	FAMF	X	X	Pertaining to, or the name of, a family file. Names stored in a file that are assigned to a family for doing temple ordinance work.
	Information	GEDC	X	X	Information about the use of GEDCOM in a transmission.
	Identification	HEAD	X	X	Identifies information pertaining to an entire GEDCOM transmission.
	Legatee	LEGA	X		Person receiving a legacy or beneficiary of a testamentary clause.
	Ordinance	ORDI	X	X	Pertaining to a religious ordinance in general.
	Submission	SUBN	X	X	Pertains to a collection of data issued for processing.
	Time	TIME	X	X	A time value in a 24-hour clock format, including hours, minutes, and optional seconds, separated by a colon (:). Fractions of seconds are shown in decimal notation.
	Trailer	TRLR	X	X	At level 0, specifies the end of a GEDCOM transmission.
	Version	VERS	X	X	Indicates which version of a product, item, or publication is being used or referenced.

 

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