GEDCOM Tags - Custom Tags in Other Programs

User-Defined GEDCOM Tags

Customer tags may be found in GEDCOM files from other programs. These tags are not part of the GEDCOM 5.5 standard. They have been created and used by various genealogy programs in order to handle pieces of information that are not accounted for in the GEDCOM 5.5 specification. 

Adding new tags is allowed in GEDCOM files.  Any new tag is supposed to begin with an underscore character (_).  Other programs that import GEDCOM files containing these new tag may or may not recognize them.

New tags that do not begin with an underscore have also been created and used by many genealogy programs.  This is against the "rules" but is very common.  Again, other programs that import GEDCOM files with these "illegal" tags may or may not recognize them.

You can find an extensive list of these GEDCOM tags in the Legacy Help file if you look up GEDCOM: Tags in the Help Index.

For custom Legacy GEDCOM tags, please see the KB article under "GEDCOM Tags - Custom Tags in Legacy"