Gramps - Geneealogy Software

[mahesh2k 0]

I was looking for a way to map genealogy tree effectively and found gramps software. The problem with most of the other genealogy software was some of them were hard to export data. Some were restricted to windows or mac only. But first time i have found one good program on genealogy that runs on windows, mac and linux. I tested gramps on KDE under kubuntu and on windows. I have no idea about mac os version and so not yet tested. But as far as my current experience is concerned, gramps works fine on windows and linux. So in short gramps genealogy app is free, open source and available with multiple operating systems. If you're into genealogy for hobby or some important family history tracking then consider using gramps for your data analysis.

There are some good features of gramps like - you can maintain relationships status and the life status with it. It's easy to modify such data related to the people using gramps. I have done this before and it's possible to do with data of ancestry. You can also add some important information related to family tree like - people, dates, events, children, places, gepgraphy, sources, extra text information, email address, physical address, repository, media and notes etc. You'll be able to create simple documents in few minutes if you've already used the documentation.

There is some learning curve for the software by the way. You're not going to get the information about the usage that easily. Though there is some help available but you have to see each and every option on your own if you want to know how this software works. It is sometimes hard to manage the software if you're new to gramps interface. But if you work on it for sometime then you'll pick up the software for sure.

There are some plugins that you can use with it to enhance the usage of the gramps software. You can find such plugins in plugin manager which i found after searching randomly. there are some good and un-necessary plugins, but it depends on you if you want them or not. For me, i guess none of these extra plugins interests me as software in that current state is enough for the usage. You can export the data in opendocument spreadsheet or tab seperated file in csv format. So this is pretty much everything you need in this gramps genealogy program. Not sure how many of you'll like this software but if it interests you, check gramps.

[yordan 10]

Thanks a lot for that info.Till now I did not find any good software for free. And the commercial genealogy softwares I found were far too expensive, so I gave up.I will try gramps, hope that my learning curve will reach a reasonable level in a reasonably short time!

[mahesh2k 0]

Windows has more options for the genealogy software and most of them have feature set and searchable database much bigger than any free alternative. In case of gramps you are not getting the database. You're only getting the free software and from where you have to build things on your own. That is the only issue with the gramps for now. Otherwise it stands as one good alternative software for the genealogy commercial software. I thought most of the users will like this for sure. I shared it on FB and found many friends liking it already. I don't know if they'll allow searchable and connectable database for the relationship building. But if they do then i guess that will help many members upload their information into the gramps. This information can be then used for the building of central genealogy tree. Ah too much wishful thinking for now. If you're using linux based version of the gramps then you'll surely notice the issue of learning that software. KDE based interface always looks cluttered due to the default themes. Maybe that could be the issue. If you're on windows then i guess you'll pick up things quickly without any issues and in few hours for sure. Most of the windows users picks up things quickly on their operating system. It's just that if you check mac or linux version then the interface with os and the respective desktop manager often confuses you. That is what happened to me.