Best Open Source Genealogy Software?

An anonymous reader writes "I'm looking to build a family tree for a holiday gift. Do the Slashdotters of the world have any recommendations on open source genealogy software? I did try a 14-day free trial of Ancestry.com. What a scam! I submitted the personal information for my parents, grandparents, and me. Then, I received a pop-up telling me that if I would like to get information on my family, I would have to upgrade my subscription for $29.95 US. So, I took the chance. Turns out that the only information they had was my previous addresses for the past 20 years." The venerable GRAMPS is still actively developed, and its site lists several other possibilities, too. Any favorites, or anti-favorites, out there?

Comments

webtrees

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want it online or even locally, webtrees is the most current open package. active development team and community based forums will assist you where required. www.webtrees.net.

does everything you need and more!

Re:webtrees

[Anonymous Coward]

you should try 'webtrees', a php and MySQL-driven web-based collaborative software package that forked off phpGedView. It is up-to-date, fast and has no compromises. It protects privacy better than any other online program I know, and is quite flexible in configuration. There is an easy to use test demonstration installation where you can review its many features, both as a user and as an admin. http://www.webtrees.net

Re:webtrees

[ichthius]

Disclaimer first - I am the project manager of webtrees, and was previously the project manager of PhpGedView, from which it forked at the start of 2010....

You have three real choices.

(1) a desktop application
(2) a web-based application (under your control)
(3) a web-based application (managed by someone like ancestry)

I'd be tempted to steer away from (3). Most make it very difficult to apply proper sources/citations to your research, and genealogists tend to get pretty obsessed with their sources.

I tried ancestry once, but found it very limiting. For example, it only allows you to enter "simply connected" trees, so if any of your ancestors married their cousins, you cannot link the common ancestors. It is also difficult to add sources that do not come from ancestry itself.

If you are going to publish on the web, privacy is pretty important. In some countries, privacy laws apply only to living people. In others, privacy extends for a certain number of years after death. The online services tend to operate with the privacy rules of their host country - which may be different to yours. So, check what options are available before signing up to any provider.

This leaves (1) and (2).

Whatever you do, pick an application that can read/write to the (de-facto standard) GEDCOM format. Bear in mind that many applications will either extend the specification or lose some data when saving to it, so interoperability is rarely 100%.

Web-based solutions offer the obvious advantage that the whole family can work on this together. You'll get far greater commitment from the rest of the family if they can update it diretly, rather than send updates to a central person for data entry.

Even if you use a desktop application for your main research and data entry, you'll probably still want a web-based application to publish it.

A web-based system also allows you (presumably the geek of the family) to maintain the site, perform backups, etc., while allowing your (presumably less IT literate) family members to do the fun part - researching your history.

For all its faults, ancestry.com does have a huge amount of data. So, buy your relative a subscription, and set them up an open-source, web-based system on your favourite web-hosting provider.

Geneweb

[Imabug]

I've used GeneWeb and really liked it. Written in OCaml, but appears to be dormant. Nothing much has happened with it for a few years now. Still a pretty good program though.

How about geni.com ?

[davejenkins]

Geni.com is an online service, not open source software per se, but it's free to use, useful, and there's a lot of data there already. I found my ancestors going back to the 17th century after matching up my own tree back to my grandparents. http://www.geni.com/

Re:How about geni.com ?

[Kral_Blbec]

You mean like this?
https://familysearch.org/

First, try the living if possible

[novar21]

My grandma has givin me sooooo much skini on the family its not funny. Didn't cost me a dime other than my time. Trust me... they don't hold back and will give you info can not find anywhere. They are the source.. if they aren't available, talk with the gossip of the family. Each family has one. Find them, then prepare yourself for A LOT of bad news.

GEDCOM

[Okind]

For basic usage, any program that supports GEDCOM (the de facto file format all good genealogy software support) will do, and your choice should be on your personal preference. So try them out first, of find your local genealogy association and ask around. Personally, I have good experience with Gramps (you already found that one) and ProGen (a dutch commercial program). The latter not being open source, it'll probably not be interesting to you.

For more advanced usage, you should know that some programs assigns a different meaning to some standard fields, and most programs have their own way of filling in custom fields. If you find yourself using such features, please consider who you'd be sharing your GEDCOM files with, and use the same. Note though, that it'll likely not be open source.

PAF

[greg.collver]

not open source, but the mormon's offer a nice little program for free: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/paf/

GRAMPS, and maybe PhpGedView

[Shadyman]

GRAMPS is the best OSS piece of software I've found so far. You can also export it to PhpGedView (a very nice OSS web-based application)

Pro tip: *Always* record your sources, for every scrap of info (GRAMPS lets you do this), that way when (Not "If") you have conflicting pieces of information, you can figure out which one to trust. GRAMPS also lets you assign a 'reliability' to each piece of information.

The only problem is that exporting to GEDCOM format loses a lot of this kind of 'extra' data. (IE, exporting is a lossy process, so use GRAMPS as a master, and if you want to put your tree online, use that as a secondary source for family members to add to.)

As far as resources go, Ancestry.com has a bad habit of suggesting that they have a ton of matches in all these different databases, when in fact most of the matches returned don't have any relation to the names you entered. Don't base your decision to subscribe solely on that.
That being said, many public libraries offer free access to some, or many, census records and other public databases.

If you have Swedish ancestors, GenLine is EPIC: Digitized church records (Swedes often had data recorded annually instead of every 5 or 10 years, and also recorded moves into and out of parish districts.)

Re:GRAMPS

[dm1407]

Same here. Anyone wanting to try Gramps on windows should download the portableapps.com version so you don't have to bother with installing the dependencies. http://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Download

Re:BYOB

[Anonymous Coward]

GEDCOM is what you're looking for there.

OT, anyone know why won't chrome paste into the slashdot textboxes?