Gramps

Linux Support
1

Hi,
I think it was Graeme (Emegra) who recently mentioned that he used the above programme, I do quite a lot of Genealogy and wondered what you thought of this programme. I have installed it on my desktop running Ubuntu 12.04 but it seems a bit complicated though I haven’t spent much time with it. Is it worth persevering with and getting used to do you think. Most of my stuff is done using Ancestry.
Any thoughts would be appreciated,

Regards,
Degsy

2

Hi Degsy

I do use gramps and have about 1100 people listed on it I moved over to gramps about 6 months after moving over to Linux, at that time i was using Roots Magic 4 which I tried running in wine for a while but although it did work it was a bit buggy so I decided to shift to gramps.

Gramps does take a bit of getting used to (at least that’s what I found) but after I got used to the way it works I found it to be the most powerful and fully featured of any genealogy program I’ve ever tried including Heredis, Legacy, Roots Magic and some others, it has a huge amount of reports and plugin functionality (gramplets) it’s not as polished or as pretty as most others but I’m not really interested in polish.

there would be no harm in loading up a gedcom and giving it a try (you’ve nothing to lose) , there is a learning curve but it’s not that difficult and well worth the effort, if I can do it anyone can

give it a go and if I can help you with anything you know where I am

Good Luck

Graeme

3

Thanks Graeme, I will download a gedcom and see how I get on with it. As I said before I have downloaded and had a bit of a play, entering a couple of people from scratch but it did seem to take a bit of getting used to, I haven’t looked at the reports side of things, that can come after I download the gedcom.

Thanks again for your response and encouragement, expect one or two more questions over the next few days.

Cheers,
Degsy

4
Thanks again for your response and encouragement, expect one or two more questions over the next few days.

You’re welcome, and ask any questions you like but bear in mind Gramps is a serious piece of software and I am by no means an expert and still learning myself

Graeme

5

When you drag an icon to docky, do the icons already on docky seperate to give you room to drop it ?

6

Hi Graeme,
Exported and imported a gedcom file from Ancestry to Gramps. Seemed to go ok, will gave a play with this over the best few days and see how I get on. At least I now have a reasonable tree to work on without all the tedious and laborious work of having to re-enter the data.

Cheers,
Degsy

7

Had a bit of a play around with this and it does look to have a lot of features, so will persevere as it seems likely to be a slow learning curve. You haven’t come across any advice for its use have you as the “Manual” is an absolute no no from start to finish.

Many thanks,
Degsy.

8

Hi Degsy

Yeah I agree the manual can be a bit heavy going, I just picked things up by trial and error and worked things out as best as I could myself, but the community is very helpful you can subscribe to the mailing lists here http://sourceforge.net/p/gramps/mailman/ .

Like I said I’m still learning as well but it’s really no different from learning any new genealogy program, they all have a learning curve, you’ll make mistakes (I know I have) but the important thing is to learn from them

So I think between the Gramps Wiki, the mailing lists & what limited help I can offer you’ll get there

If there is anything you think I can help you with please don’t be afraid to ask

It nice to have a fellow gramps user

Good luck

Graeme

9

Hi Graeme,

Many thanks for the link to the mailing lists, that looks useful and I will use it. Will get back to you if there is a specific problem I come across that you might be able to help with. Also glad that I am not alone with Gramps.

Degsy