Use this when you’ve been maintaining a tree in RootsMagic and want to move it to Charted Roots. RootsMagic produces some of the cleanest GEDCOM exports of any major genealogy tool — citations, source templates, and media references all carry through reliably. By the end you’ll have a .ged file from RootsMagic and an imported tree in your vault.
What you’ll need#
- A working RootsMagic installation with your tree open. RootsMagic 7, 8, and 9 all support GEDCOM 5.5.1 export.
- (Recommended) A Staging folder configured under Settings → Charted Roots → Folders → System folders.
- Knowledge of your RootsMagic media folder location if you want to bring media across.
Steps#
1. Export from RootsMagic#
In RootsMagic:
- File → Export (RootsMagic 8/9) or File → Export GEDCOM (RootsMagic 7).
- Choose GEDCOM 5.5.1 as the version.
- Select what to include: People, Families, Sources, Citations, Media references, Notes. The full set is recommended.
- Choose privacy options if you want living-person filtering at export time.
- Save the
.gedfile. RootsMagic typically exports to UTF-8 by default — confirm this in the export options if your tree has non-ASCII names. - (If migrating media): RootsMagic’s media references are typically relative paths to a media folder next to your
.rmtreefile. Copy that folder into your Obsidian vault at a path you’ll reference in step 3.
2. Open the Charted Roots Import Wizard#
Control Center → Tools → Import/Export → Import. Pick GEDCOM 5.5.1. Drag-and-drop the .ged file.
3. Configure import options#
- Entity types — leave defaults on.
- Target folder — your Staging folder if you set one up.
- Media references — enable.
- Path prefix to strip — set to your RootsMagic media folder’s path (e.g.,
C:\Users\You\Documents\RootsMagic\Media\). The wizard’s live preview shows how each path resolves; tune until paths render as clean[[filename]]wikilinks.
4. Run the import#
RootsMagic’s GEDCOM is structured cleanly enough that the Data Quality Preview usually surfaces few issues. The preview’s place-name variants pane is still worth a pass — Charted Roots normalizes US state abbreviations automatically, but other regional formatting (county names, country variants) benefits from explicit canonical-form choices. See I want to import a GEDCOM file and clean up the result for the full preview workflow.
5. Verify citations#
RootsMagic’s citation handling is one of its strengths. After import, open a person note that had several citations in RootsMagic — you should see the citations as a citations: array of wikilinks pointing at separate citation notes (auto-created from the GEDCOM SOUR blocks with PAGE / QUAY metadata). The Entity Profile View for the person shows them grouped by source.
If you used RootsMagic’s source templates, the source notes carry the title, author, publication, and repository fields. Charted Roots also generates cr_id for each.
Variations#
- Bidirectional sharing. Export from Charted Roots back to GEDCOM 5.5.1 (Control Center → Import/Export → Export) and re-import into RootsMagic. Round-trip works for the core fields; some Charted Roots-specific properties (custom relationships, sourced facts) flatten or drop.
- Multiple RootsMagic databases. RootsMagic supports multiple separate database files. Each is a separate migration — export each as GEDCOM and import to the same Charted Roots vault, optionally to different staging subfolders for review.
- No media migration. Disable Media references in step 3 to skip media. Tree comes over without photos; you can attach media manually later.
Related guides#
- I want to import a GEDCOM file and clean up the result — shared import workflow
- I want to find and merge duplicate persons
- I want to set up per-fact source citations — to extend RootsMagic’s source handling per-fact
Reference#
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