Gramps: Open-Source Genealogical Research Software | Hacker News Reader

Gramps: Open-Source Genealogical Research Software

gramps-project.org

23 pointswslh9 comments

It's a solid app. We've been using it and packaging it for portable use for 4 years now.

Where do you source the data if you're interested in getting started in your own family history and your personal archives are fairly limited?

Starting doing better personal archives now so your descendants will have something to work with.

Start by interviewing all your living relatives for birth dates & places, marriages, deaths, etc.

Look into local archives, church records. Then go on-line at FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, Cyndislist.com. Where you go will depend on the country of origin of your ancestors.

Keep a careful record of your sources. You might have to revisit them when you come across contradictory information.

There are many free programs to record your information: Legacy, RootsMagic, Ancestral Quest.

I would love a software that did this, but without so many options, in a more freely way, a tree-view, you know.

Who are the people using this? Why they need so many options?

I am one of its users. I am not using all of its options but it's very useful for professional genealogical researchers. This means people who want to record every aspect of their ancestors life (photos, records, details, etc).

Tree-views aren't sufficient for genealogy, sadly. Cycles can and do occur.

For example this classic question [1] contains an example:

"The problem is that he has two children with his own daughter, and, as a result, he can't use my software because of errors."

In my family past I've seen some strange things too, but nothing quite on that order.

[1] - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6163683/cycles-in-family-...

The far more common case is (distant) cousins marrying. Go back two hundred years, most working class people were born in one town, married in the same, and died there, so unsurprisingly you'll come across the same people in multiple branches.

Indeed, and there are also interesting modern cases where two gay men might get married, and adopt a child - in that case the child has no mother.

(Well obviously there is a mother in the biological sense, but it might be that the data isn't available. Instead in tracking a "family" tree you'd have two fathers.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com