vscode-gedcom

A comprehensive genealogical IDE for Visual Studio Code.
Interactive family trees, 5-generation circular fan charts, consanguinity & affinity relationship calculation, chronological life timelines, multimedia image previews, real-time plausibility diagnostics, and multi-format support for traditional GEDCOM and modern GEDCOM X (JSON & XML).

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GEDCOM files are historically dense with cryptic pointers, undocumented tags, and complex inter-record dependencies. vscode-gedcom turns raw genealogical data into an intuitive, visual workspace — complete with deep language intelligence, interactive graph visualizations, multimedia image previews, and strict verification against the FamilySearch GEDCOM and GEDCOM X specifications.

GitHub Linguist Grammar: This extension's grammar powers syntax highlighting for all .ged files across github.com.

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🌟 Visual Features & Tools

🌳 Interactive Family Tree & Kinship Path Highlighting

Draws dynamic generational trees directly in a dedicated side panel. Couples are linked by marriage unions, generations are automatically organized into columns, and children descend naturally from family bars.

• Kinship Path Highlighting: Finding a relationship traces and highlights the exact multi-generational line of descent with glowing golden branches, dimming unrelated relatives.
• Directional Traversal: Switch effortlessly between Both Directions, Ancestors Only, and Descendants Only.
• Vector SVG Export: Export any rendered branch into a standalone SVG with baked theme styles, solid background, and context-aware file naming (tree-<xref>-<name>.svg).
• Interactive Controls: Smooth pan, zoom-to-fit, recentering, and one-click code navigation back to any individual or family record.

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🪭 5-Generation Circular Ancestor Fan Chart

Switch the tree view into a $240^\circ$ Radial Fan Chart to explore direct paternal and maternal lineages at a glance.

• Ahnentafel Numbering: Standardized genealogical indexing from the root person ($1$) through parents ($2, 3$), grandparents ($4\text{--}7$), and beyond.
• Color-Coded Lineages: Distinct visual styling for paternal and maternal branches with generation rings and empty-slot indicators.
• Standalone Export: Export the entire circular fan chart directly to clean vector SVG (fan-chart-<xref>-<name>.svg).

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🧭 Relationship & Consanguinity Calculator

Select any two individuals in the file to instantly determine their exact genealogical connection.

• Consanguinity (Blood) & Affinity (Marriage): Accurately computes cousin degrees and removals (e.g. 2nd cousin once removed), great-aunts/uncles, grand-nephews/nieces (niblings), in-laws, and step-relations.
• Common Ancestor Resolution: Identifies the nearest common ancestral couple or person connecting both individuals.
• Show Path in Tree: One click dynamically expands the family tree beyond default depth limits and frames the full path between the two relatives.

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⏳ Chronological Life Event Timeline & Media Previews

Inspect a person's life journey in the Details Panel with an interactive vertical milestone timeline and multimedia previews.

• Computed Event Ages: Displays exact computed age at every milestone (e.g., Age 0 at birth, Age 24 at marriage or birth of first child, Age 81 at death).
• Comprehensive Life Events: Consolidates personal milestones (birth, baptism, residence, census, marriage, occupations, death, burial) and the births of children.
• Multimedia Image Previews: Renders high-quality thumbnail previews for attached photographs and records — supporting remote https:// URLs as well as local relative and absolute paths (portrait.jpg, portrait.png, C:\..., file:// URIs).
• Click to Navigate: Clicking any milestone jumps directly to the corresponding line in the editor.

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⚡ Language Intelligence & Verification

🔍 Real-Time Diagnostics & Plausibility Validation

Driven by the official FamilySearch GEDCOM specification and registries:

• Genealogical Plausibility Checks: Identifies biological contradictions, including death before birth, implausible parent ages at child birth ($< 12$ or $> 70$), post-mortem births, marriage outside lifespan, and unrecorded deaths for individuals born $> 120$ years ago.
• Syntax & Structural Validation: Flags missing tags, invalid cardinality, unrecognized custom tags, and dangling or duplicate @XREF@ pointers.
• Multi-Format Awareness: Automatically adapts validation and intelligence rules for GEDCOM 7.0, GEDCOM X (JSON & XML), GEDCOM 5.5.5, and GEDCOM 5.5.1.

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💡 Automated Quick Fixes & Exporter Repairs

One-click Code Actions (Ctrl+. / 💡) to resolve errors, synthesize missing records, and repair corrupted files:

• Plausibility Quick Fixes: Swap inverted birth and death dates or automatically insert missing DEAT entries.
• Dangling Pointer Resolutions: Replace missing pointers with standard @VOID@ or synthesize a new skeleton INDI record.
• Exporter Defect Batch Repair: Detects consecutive lines missing level numbers from exporter defects (such as MyHeritage notes) and repairs the entire block in a single click.
• One-Click GEDCOM 7 Upgrade: GEDCOM: Upgrade File to GEDCOM 7.0 updates headers, converts CONC to CONT, rewrites RELA to ROLE, collects custom _TAG extensions into a standard HEAD.SCHMA block, and ensures standard 0 TRLR.

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🏷️ Inlay Hints & Rich Hovers

• Pointer Inline Names: See who or what a pointer references directly at the end of the line (1 FAMS @F1@ $\rightarrow$ John Smith + Jane Doe, <person1 resource="#KWQS-BB1"/> $\rightarrow$ Henry Taylor).
• Enumeration Decoders: Translates opaque codes into plain English (1 SEX M $\rightarrow$ Male, 2 QUAY 3 $\rightarrow$ Primary).
• Lifespan & Event Ages: Shows subject age at event lines computed against their birth date (died age 73).
• Smart Hovers: Rich entity cards for individuals (lifespan, vital birth/death events), source citations, and contributors/agents across GEDCOM and GEDCOM X files.

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⌨️ Navigation, Formatting & Symbols

• Cross-Record Navigation (Ctrl+Click / F12): Go to Definition and Find All References (Shift+Alt+F12) across cross-record pointers and resource links in .ged, .json, and .xml files.
• Workspace Symbol Search (Ctrl+T / Cmd+T): Instantly search individuals by name or identifier, families by partner names, sources by title, and repositories.
• Record Skeletons & Snippets: Insert compliant boilerplate templates for indi, fam, sour, repo, birt, marr, deat, buri, cens, and note.
• Document Formatting (Shift+Alt+F): Normalizes level indentation, standardizes uppercase tag names, removes blank lines, and trims trailing whitespace.
• Virtual Indentation: Visually indents lines according to their level number without altering the underlying file content.

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🛠️ Commands

Command	Title	Description
gedcom.findRelationship	GEDCOM: Find Relationship Between Individuals	Computes kinship, common ancestors, and traces the relationship path.
gedcom.modernize	GEDCOM: Upgrade File to GEDCOM 7.0	Automatically upgrades a GEDCOM 5.5.1 file to standard FamilySearch GEDCOM 7.
gedcom.showGraph	GEDCOM: Show Family Tree	Reveals the interactive Family Tree & Fan Chart visualization panel.
gedcom.showDetails	GEDCOM: Show Details	Reveals the record inspector and chronological life event timeline.
gedcom.copyReport	GEDCOM: Copy Diagnostics	Copies sanitized environment diagnostics and server state to clipboard.
gedcom.showLog	GEDCOM: Show Log	Opens the live language server logging stream in the Output panel.

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⚙️ Configuration Settings

Setting	Default	Description
gedcom.graph.depth	2	Number of generational hops displayed from the selected record.
gedcom.graph.includeReferences	false	Include citations, notes, and media records directly in the tree diagram.
gedcom.validation.strictness	auto	auto enforces strict rules on GEDCOM 7 and lenient on 5.5.x.
gedcom.inlayHints.pointers	true	Show resolved individual/family names at the end of pointer lines.
gedcom.inlayHints.values	true	Show plain-text descriptions for coded enumerations (SEX, QUAY, PEDI).
gedcom.inlayHints.ages	true	Show subject ages next to dated events based on their birth record.
gedcom.codeLens.enabled	true	Show record headers, relation summaries, and quick navigation links above records.
gedcom.details.imagePreviews	true	Render thumbnail previews for remote https URLs and local image paths in the Details Panel.
gedcom.virtualIndent.enabled	false	Visually indent lines in the editor based on GEDCOM level numbers without modifying the file.
gedcom.virtualIndent.width	2	Number of visual columns indented per level.

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📦 Installation

Search for GEDCOM Language in the VS Code Extensions view, or run:

ext install florianguitton.vscode-gedcom

Works seamlessly on desktop VS Code and in the browser on vscode.dev and github.dev.

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📜 Supported Standards

• FamilySearch GEDCOM 7 (7.0.18, February 2025) — The active living standard with machine-readable registries.
• GEDCOM X (JSON & XML) — Modern FamilySearch data exchange specifications for JSON and XML datasets.
• GEDCOM 5.5.5 (2019) — UTF-8 strict maintenance specification.
• GEDCOM 5.5.1 (1999) — The historic universal exchange standard.

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🤝 Contributing & Feedback

Contributions, bug reports, and suggestions are warmly welcomed on GitHub. Please refer to CONTRIBUTING.md for development workflows.

Distributed under the Apache-2.0 License.