gedcom-genealogy-skills
A set of skills that teach Claude how to work with GEDCOM genealogy files. You can search through GEDCOM databases, show individuals' detail
Open source Open in the app JSON README (API)
About
A set of skills that teach Claude how to work with GEDCOM genealogy files. You can search through GEDCOM databases, show individuals' details, and make changes to the database all from within Claude.
Details
- Kind
- Plugins
- Topic
- Databases
- Publisher
- vaelen
- Origin
- marketplace
- Category
- ferramentas
- Stars
- 3
- Last push
- 2026-05-07T01:11:02Z
- Repository state
- ativo
- License
- MIT
- Added
- 2026-08-30 01:48:58
- Updated
- 2026-08-30 01:48:58
- Origin id
vaelen/gedcom-skills/gedcom-genealogy-skills
README
# gedcom-skills A Claude Code plugin that ships skills for working with [GEDCOM](https://www.gedcom.org/) genealogy files. The skills are thin SKILL.md wrappers around console scripts published by two sibling Python packages: [**gedcom-lite**](https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-lite) — the fidelity-preserving parser/writer that powers `read-gedcom`, `search-gedcom`, and `update-gedcom` — and [**gedcom-reports**](https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-reports), which provides the `gedcom-ancestor-report` script behind the `ancestor-report` skill. ## Skills | Skill | What it does | Sample prompts | | --- | --- | --- | | **read-gedcom** | Summarize a file, list records, show one record by xref. | "What's in `tree.ged`?", "list everyone in this GEDCOM", "show me record @I42@" | | **search-gedcom** | Query by tag/value/path or by person/date/place/relationship (ancestors, descendants, parents, children). | "find people named Smith", "who was born between 1900 and 1910", "ancestors of @I1@" | | **update-gedcom** | Set, add, remove with round-trip fidelity; safe-by-default writes. | "change @I1@'s name to Jane Doe", "add a NOTE to @I7@", "delete record @I9@" | | **ancestor-report** | Generate a markdown ancestor report organized by generation (Ahnentafel-numbered), with categorized immigrant tables and a colonial-ancestors section. | "report all my ancestors back 7 generations", "make a markdown report of @I1@'s ancestry", "list immigrants in my tree by region", "build a colonial ancestors report" | For the operational details of each, read the skill's `SKILL.md`. ## Install Inside Claude Code, add the marketplace and install the plugin: ```text /plugin marketplace add vaelen/gedcom-skills /plugin install gedcom-skills@gedcom-skills ``` `/plugin marketplace add` accepts a `owner/repo` shorthand for GitHub or a full URL to any git host. After installation all four skills (`read-gedcom`, `search-gedcom`, `update-gedcom`, `ancestor-report`) are available in every session. The skills shell out to `gedcom-lite` and `gedcom-reports` via `uvx`, so [`uv`](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/) must be on your `PATH`. No separate `pip install` is needed — `uvx` fetches each package on first use. ## Versions in scope | Version | Year | Why we support it | | --- | --- | --- | | GEDCOM 5.5.1 | 1999 | Most-deployed legacy format. The de-facto interchange format used by virtually every genealogy app shipped before 2022. | | GEDCOM 5.5.5 | 2019 | Cleanup release of the 5.5 line. UTF-8 only; not widely adopted but useful as a reference. | | FamilySearch GEDCOM 7.0+ | 2021– | Current, actively maintained. UTF-8 only; defines a real extension mechanism and GEDZIP packaging. | GEDCOM 7 is a breaking change from 5.5.x. `gedcom-lite` reads any of the three; on write it never silently promotes a file to a different version. ## Layout ``` . ├── README.md # this file ├── CLAUDE.md # working agreements for Claude Code in this repo ├── .claude-plugin/ │ └── plugin.json # plugin manifest ├── skills/ │ ├── read-gedcom/SKILL.md │ ├── search-gedcom/SKILL.md │ ├── update-gedcom/SKILL.md │ └── ancestor-report/SKILL.md ├── docs/ # GEDCOM-domain reference (linked from each SKILL.md) └── examples/ # small demo set; the full fixture suite lives in gedcom-lite ``` There is no Python code in this repo. The parser, writer, ANSEL codec, CLI tools, and full test suite live in [`gedcom-lite`](https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-lite); the report generator lives in [`gedcom-reports`](https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-reports). ## How invocations work Every skill uses the same shape: `uvx --from <package> <command>`. `uvx` (which ships with [`uv`](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/)) caches an ephemeral environment with the package installed, so no prior `pip install` is required: ```bash uvx --from gedcom-lite gedcom-read tree.ged uvx --from gedcom-lite gedcom-search tree.ged --person Smith uvx --from gedcom-lite gedcom-update tree.ged -o new.ged set-payload @I1@ NAME "Jane /Doe/" uvx --from gedcom-reports gedcom-ancestor-report tree.ged --root @I1@ --depth 7 --output report.md ``` To run unreleased changes from git instead of the PyPI release: ```bash uvx --from "git+https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-lite" gedcom-read tree.ged uvx --from "git+https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-reports" gedcom-ancestor-report tree.ged --root @I1@ ``` If the packages are installed system-wide (`pip install gedcom-lite gedcom-reports` or `uv tool install ...`), invoke the commands directly without `uvx`. ## Example files `examples/` ships a small demo set so the skills can be exercised without checking out the library: - `examples/gedcom70/minimal70.ged` — smallest valid GEDCOM 7.0 file - `examples/gedcom70/maximal70.ged` — broad GEDCOM 7.0 coverage (every standard tag in many positions) - `examples/gedcom555/MINIMAL555.GED` — smallest valid GEDCOM 5.5.5 file - `examples/gedcom555/555SAMPLE.GED` — canonical GEDCOM 5.5.5 sample For the full official test suite (UTF-16, ANSEL, extensions, escapes, voidptrs, GDZ archives, …) see [`gedcom-lite/examples/`](https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-lite/tree/main/examples). ## References - [gedcom-lite](https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-lite) — the parser/CLI package behind `read-gedcom`, `search-gedcom`, `update-gedcom` - [gedcom-reports](https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-reports) — the report generator behind `ancestor-report` - [GEDCOM 5.5.5 specification](https://www.gedcom.org/) — gedcom.org - [FamilySearch GEDCOM 7 specification](https://gedcom.io/specifications/FamilySearchGEDCOMv7.html) — gedcom.io - [FamilySearch GEDCOM Compatibility Guide](https://gedcom.io/compatibility/) ## License MIT — Copyright © 2026 Andrew C. Young (andrew@vaelen.org). See [LICENSE](LICENSE) for the full text. The underlying [`gedcom-lite`](https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-lite/blob/main/LICENSE) and [`gedcom-reports`](https://github.com/vaelen/gedcom-reports) packages are distributed under the same terms.