Pedigree Forge is one of many genealogy computer programs. To share and transfer information between them, the common format is known as GEDCOM, which is an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmuncation. It was developed by the Family History Department of the Mormon Church. These file have the extension “.ged”.
The GEDCOM format has developed over the years; the most commonly used version is 5.5.1, which dates from 1999, although version 7 (also known as FamilySearch GEDCOM[1]) was introduced in 2021, the use of which is growing, but not all programs currently support this version.
Important: GEDCOM is the best (but imperfect) tool we have to transfer data between applications. As each program supports different functionality—part of what makes them unique—there is very likely to be some data lost each time you transfer information between different applications, as one program won’t have the same features as another. For example, Pedigree Forge allows you to mark text as bold, and italics etc[2]. This isn’t supported by GEDCOM 5.5.1 at all, and many other programs don’t support this feature either, so the bold and italic attributes, are likely to be lost on transfer, although the text within should be retained. All good genealogical applications will support the “core” of GEDCOM, so things like names, dates, places, relationships, sources etc., should be transferred without issue.
Note: Raw GEDCOM does not transfer any linked files (like photos). You will have to transfer these manually.
[1] FamilySearch GEDCOM is a trademark of Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. A service provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints https://gedcom.io/.
[2] GEDCOM version 7, introduced a limited amount of support for rich text.