GEDCOM Validator
Structural problems in a GEDCOM file — a pointer to a record that no longer exists, a family link that only goes one way, a death date before a birth date — often sit silently in a file for years before something like an import or an upload surfaces them. This tool finds them first, with the line number where each one lives.
Runs in your browser · nothing is uploaded
Drop your GEDCOM file here
Everything happens inside your browser — the file is never uploaded, and we never see it.
Choose a fileWhat this tool does
The validator parses your file the same way our Upload Readiness Checker does, then walks every individual and family record checking three things: that every FAMC, FAMS, HUSB, WIFE, and CHIL pointer resolves to a record that actually exists in the file; that every family link is reciprocal (a child pointing to a family via FAMC should have that family list them back under CHIL, and the same for spouses); and that recorded dates are chronologically possible — no death before birth, no birth in the future, no marriage before a spouse was born. See Understanding GEDCOM's Level/Tag/Value Structure for how these pointers are actually written in the file, and GEDCOM Date Qualifiers Explained for how GEDCOM represents approximate and range dates, which this tool accounts for when reading years.
Who this is for
Anyone who inherited a GEDCOM file from a relative or older software and wants to know what shape it's really in before importing it somewhere new, and anyone who has already hit a vague error on a platform and wants to rule out structural corruption as the cause.
Reading the results
Each issue is labeled by category and severity. Errors are problems that make the file internally inconsistent — a pointer to nothing, a date that can't be true. Warnings are worth checking but aren't necessarily wrong, like a one-way link that might be intentional in an edge case, or an age at death that's unusually high. Every issue includes the line number in your original file, so you can jump straight to it in a text editor.
Common questions
- Does this tool upload my GEDCOM file anywhere?
- No. Validation happens entirely in your browser. Your file is never sent to our servers or stored anywhere.
- What does this tool actually check?
- Three things: dangling references (a FAMC, FAMS, HUSB, WIFE, or CHIL pointer to a record ID that doesn't exist in the file), one-way family links (a person points to a family as a child or spouse, but the family record doesn't point back), and impossible dates (a death year before a birth year, a birth year in the future, a marriage before a spouse was born, or an implausible age at death).
- Is this the same as the Upload Readiness Checker?
- No — they check different things. The Upload Readiness Checker looks at FamilySearch-specific risk factors like file size and individual count. This Validator checks the file's own internal consistency, independent of any platform. Run both if you're preparing a file for FamilySearch.
- It found a dangling reference — how do I fix it?
- The report gives you the exact line number and record ID involved, so you can open the file in a text editor and either remove the broken pointer or restore the missing record. If the missing record belongs to a branch you don't need, the Tree Splitter can also export a subset that excludes it cleanly.
- Why is an implausible age at death a warning instead of an error?
- 122 years is the oldest medically documented human lifespan on record, so an age beyond that is almost always a mistyped year rather than a genuine record — but we flag it as worth checking rather than asserting it's wrong, since we can't be certain without seeing the source.