PerlGed 2.2

What is PerlGed?
PerlGed is a script that creates Web pages based on info from a GEDCOM file. Nearly all genealogy programs today can export information in the GEDCOM format, creating a single plain-text file. PerlGed pulls information from such a file and creates Web pages on the fly to display individual and family records and simple ancestor charts.
Aren’t there other sites/programs that do this?
Yes and no—I couldn’t find a solution that did exactly what I wanted, so I wrote my own (with debugging assistance from Ed Piou, of eppi, Inc.). Major sites like RootsWeb.com or GenCircles will let you upload a GEDCOM file and then create Web pages from them, but I found the visual display rather antiseptic. Other programs let you generate customizable Web pages from a GEDCOM file, but I didn’t want hundreds or thousands of separate pages that might need to be individually updated. The best alternative, developed since PerlGed’s introduction, is PHPGedView, an excellent open-source project that uses PHP instead of Perl and offers far more functionality. It’s overkill for my purposes, and I prefer my own layout of information. I also wanted a pedigree chart that showed siblings, which apparently serious genealogists don’t do.
Can I use PerlGed on my Website/computer?
Sure, with some caveats:

  1. You need Perl. Most ISPs hosting Websites do have Perl, so you’re probably in luck. Still, you may not have CGI access to Perl if you’re just a dial-up user with some server space for a small site. Ask your ISP. If you have Perl installed on your home computer (standard with Unix, Linux, Mac OS X), you can use PerlGed locally.
  2. PerlGed is shareware, so if you use it for any length of time please send US$5.00 via PayPal using the email address <ebay at etgdesign dot com>. Or write me at that address to ask about sending a check instead. And thank you for supporting shareware!
Anything else I need to know?
GEDCOM is a highly mutable standard, and each program tends to generate different code. I haven’t tried to account for all variations. PerlGed is a work in progress, so it doesn’t handle all GEDCOM tags yet. I may or may not update PerlGed, but paid users will never be asked to pay for an upgrade. PerlGed doesn’t write to disk at all, so it can’t overwrite anything; still, you use it at your own risk. There is no official tech support, but I’ll try to answer any questions emailed me and (if you’re a paid user) possibly even update PerlGed based on your comments.

Download a ZIP archive of PerlGed »

Version History

  • 2.2 [2008 Feb 24]
    • Fixed extraneous HTML tags
  • 2.14 [2006 Jan 2]
    • Clarified treatment of headshot images vs. linked OBJE files
  • 2.13 [2005 Aug 5]
    • Fixed syntax that was throwing nonfatal errors
  • 2.12
    • Fixed missing fname/lname search parameters bug (thanks to Dave Watkins for catching this)
  • 2.11
    • Extended NPFX and NSFX support to lists of names
  • 2.1
    • Fixed “mailto:mailto:” bug
    • Fixed missing $CSS link
    • Added NPFX and NSFX support
    • Added support for NOTE records (instead of just inline NOTEs)
  • 2.0
    • PerlGed has been rewritten from scratch as an object-oriented script. It’s faster, more robust, has better error checking, and handles more GEDCOM tags.
    • Output is now XHTML 1.0 Strict, and presentation can be controlled with CSS.
    • Search results are now alphabetized
    • All-new ancestor charts
Infinity Symbol