On Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:11:08 +0100
Daniel Pope <mauve@???> wrote:
> My mother is interested in putting together a family tree. In fact,
> she bought a cheap copy of "Family Historian", which is a Windows
> program, and entered some data. Happily this is stored in GEDCOM
> files which I understand is the most portable way to store it.
>
> I've set her up with GRAMPS which seems fairly comprehensive but not
> as user-friendly as what she was using[1]. On the other hand, she
> didn't understand she was just entering records into a relational
> database, which lead to some craziness (like saving the different
> sides of our family into different files).
>
> I was just wondering what is the state of the art in genealogy under
> Linux? How do I get her started? Are there online resources I can
> point her to?
I have been using geneweb for years and it powers my online "database",
see
http://startx.co.uk:2317/Kingsclere?m=NG&n=Pope&t=N
for the Pope page from that data.
Every name is an html link to that persons data.
Geneweb is NOT like any other genie program so it doesn't do fancy
charts, timelines or anything else many widows users are used to. Data
entry is simple to use once you get used to the idea that it is all
html forms.
My wife is a long time user of Family Tree Maker, she tried out Family
Historian and didn't rate it at all in comparison with FTM. She & one
of her cousins also use geneweb for their online face to the world, the
cousin uses one of the Mac genealogy apps, but both were very happy to
use geneweb once I'd introduced them to using it.
Their site is on
http://startx.co.uk:2317/FootGurd
The main problem with "gedcom" is that although it was intended by the
mormans, who originated the format, to be a universal format for
storing genealogy data it has developed as many differences as there
are applications using it.
I wanted my wife to convert to geneweb on her home system as well as
on the server at startx.co.uk but doing a conversion from FTM via
their gedcom file meant her having to edit every name to sort out the
way the conversion dealt with 'notes'. With some 20,000 names in her
file it was a lot of work so she decided to run the two applications
side by side and enters her data twice. The Mac user does the same
thing.
I did try using gramps myself (I have been on the gramps mailing list
ever since the very first version ) but didn't find it easy to get
started or to use it. It would probably be easier for someone used to
a windows type genealogy application as they all have the same sort of
interface (at least those I have looked at do)
You need to be a bit of a command line freak to use 'lines' it is a
very old unix genealogy app and last time I looked at it it had no gui
interface and it used scripts a lot to do anything with the data
once you had entered it.
I don't know of any other Linux based genie apps that are as advanced
as gramps with a windows look and feel.
One of my regular contacts uses "The Next Generation of Genealogy
Sitebuilding"
http://lythgoes.net/genealogy/software.php
and has a large database here
http://www.bobhutchins.me.uk/
Another application is "PhpGedView"
http://www.phpgedview.net/ and
there are live demos here
http://phpgedview.sourceforge.net/demos.html
These last two apps are very customizable but do require a server to
host them whereas geneweb and gramps can run as standalone apps on the
home system
HTH
--
John Lewis
using Debian Sid with windowmaker for a nicer desktop
