GED file format was developed by Utah Genealogical Association in 1984. GEDCOM format later became the standard format used by genealogical data processing software. GED files are saved in text format that uses ASCII, ANSEL, Unicode ior UTF-8 encoding.

GED file structure is strictly defined – it follows the GEDCOM standard very closely. The file uses tags to mark types of records. GED files can be opened using any standard genealogical software tools.