GENDEX

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GENDEX is a summary file format of a genealogy website's listed people. The file only contains names and birth/death dates and places. The file is submitted to search sites, which can help people searching for people find your website.

GENDEX Background

GENDEX (GENealogical inDEX) is a specification to export the index of a genealogical home page to a global name index service. Developed by Eugene W. Stark as a feature of his GEDCOM to HTML translator software, GED2HTML. Stark's GENDEX site originally accepted the GENDEX files until that site was retired in 2004, since then other sites have continued to support the format.

Examples

Gramps 3.2 (trunk) contains an Advanced Option on the Narrated Web Report for producing a gendex.txt summary file for the generated website. Simply check the box on the Advanced Options tab, upload the generated files to your website, and submit the gendex.txt and URL to a GENDEX indexing site (see below).

For example, you can see the results of submitting the gendex.txt to http://familytreeseeker.com by following this link:

http://www.familytreeseeker.com/search.php?l=en&fn=norma+lee&sn=bamford&m=1&bd1=0&bd2=2009&bp=&t=1&submit=Search

(You can also enter "Norma Lee" as given name and "Bamford" as surname at http://familytreeseeker.com).

You can mark this search to be "Equals" or "Begins with".

Here is a similar search from http://tngnetwork.lythgoes.net/

http://tngnetwork.lythgoes.net/gdxsearch.php?surname=Bamford&ssearchtype=starts&firstname=Norma&fsearchtype=starts

This search allows "starts with" but not general matching.

GENDEX Format

Each line in a GENDEX file represents the reference to a person record. Each GENDEX record has the following fields, each terminated by a '|' character:

Reference|SURNAME|given name /SURNAME/|date of birth|place of birth|date of death|place of death|                                                
                                                                   
  • field 1: file name of web page referring to the individual
  • field 2: surname of the individual
  • field 3: full name of the individual
  • field 4: date of birth or christening (optional)
  • field 5: place of birth or christening (optional)
  • field 6: date of death or burial (optional)
  • field 7: place of death or burial (optional)

The full name field and the date fields have the format as it appears in the GEDCOM NAME and DATE record.

The Gramps gendex.txt respects the private and living restrictions, as selected for the Narrated Web report. Here is an example from Gramps:

ppl/f/f/b2cfa6c431e559092ff.html|Cooper|Mary Ann /Cooper/|25 AUG 1816|Pulaski Co, , Pulaski Co, , Pulaski Co, , KY|17 JUN 1856|Clinton Co, , Clinton Co, , Clinton Co, , IN|
ppl/f/b/b2cfa6c5b1628faacbf.html|Joggerst|Josef /Joggerst/||Urloffen, Baden, Germany|||
ppl/9/7/b2cfa6c5c41642f8f79.html|Cooper|Elizabeth Ann /Cooper/|ABT 1824|Kentucky|||
ppl/3/7/b2cfa6c74ed11ad8073.html|Wade|Maude /Wade/|||||
ppl/9/f/b2cfa6c92f731c919f9.html|Spurgeon|Thomas /Spurgeon/|19 JUN 1842|Rush Co, , Rush Co, , Rush Co, , IN|5 APR 1875||
ppl/2/2/b2cfa6c938e32fbb122.html|Scott|Ora /Scott/|||||
ppl/6/9/b2cff46bb5a722dfe96.html|Sinclair|[Living] /Sinclair/|||||
ppl/b/c/b30c972b1e86b9a56cb.html|Wheeldon|[Living] /Wheeldon/|||||
ppl/7/a/b3197741a833663bfa7.html|Blankenship|[Living] /Blankenship/|||||
ppl/b/a/b3263f4b85449807bab.html|Stanmillis|Margaret /Stanmillis/|ABT 1590|Stranmillis, Belfast, Ulster, Northern Ireland|||
ppl/3/5/b45eb10015c31be2a53.html|Baxter|[Living] /Baxter/|||||

The [Living] text can be changed on Gramps Preference -> Text tab.

GENDEX Search Indexes

  1. http://www.familytreeseeker.com/add.php?l=en
  2. http://tngnetwork.lythgoes.net/newgdxacct.php

References

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GENDEX
  2. http://www.genealogytoday.com/gendex/index.html - Uploading Your gendex.txt Files to the Genealogical Index
  3. http://www.starkeffect.com/ged2html/ - GED2HTML, A GEDCOM to HTML Translator