software for linux

[bugbear]

I have 2 related questions.

1) How important is your choice of Genealogy Software?
In other words, if I made a bad choice, and found
a better program, how hard is to transfer information.

If all programs speak "ged" can I just import/export
anytime I like, or will various "good stuff" get lost.

2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software
for linux? Alternatively, if someone could point me
at a linux-centric list, or review site,
I could take it from there.

BugBear

[Charlie Hoffpauir]

On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:06:57 +0100, bugbear
<bugbear@trim_papermule.co.uk_trim> wrote:

I have 2 related questions.

1) How important is your choice of Genealogy Software?

It depends on "which" program you start with and "which" program you
decide to switch to. Some are much better at importing data from some
programs....there's no universal "best one in my opinion, although
RootsMagic and TMG both do a pretty good job of importing. In general,
if you start with a "limited" Genealogy program, and switch to a more
full featured one, you won't lose very much. But if you start with a
full featured program and switch to a limited one, you will probably
find that the limited program doesn't include some features that the
other program had, and you lose that information.

In other words, if I made a bad choice, and found
a better program, how hard is to transfer information.

Not hard, but perhaps frustrating.
If all programs speak "ged" can I just import/export
anytime I like, or will various "good stuff" get lost.

You'll not only lose some stuff, but if you don't choose the initial

program well, you might find that some stuff you entered just won't
export correctly to another program. But you can count on "basic" data
transferring OK.

2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software
for linux? Alternatively, if someone could point me
at a linux-centric list, or review site,
I could take it from there.
I'm not qualified to comment on this. However, the choices for Linux

are much more limited than for Windows or even Mac OS.

BugBear

In general, programs make it fairly easy to import PAF data (probably
since PAF was one of the popular eary programs). TMG and RootsMagic
make it easy to import Family Tree Maker data, probably since Family
Tree Maker is the most used program by beginners, and so arguably the
most "switched-from" program. But just because FTM data is easily
imported into RM or TMG that that make is a good program to start
with. As a "beginners" program, FTM makes it very easy to be very
sloppy with your data, and that makes it very hard for any program to
import it properly. It much better (IMO) to start with a better
program and learn good techniques early on.
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/
Message board:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=b ... .hoffpauir
Mail list:
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname ... pauir.html
DNA project:
<http://www.familytreedna.com/(153dme45ewxtrs45rzxk5z2x)/public/Hoffpauir/index.aspx>

[Joe User]

On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:06:57 +0100, bugbear wrote:

If all programs speak "ged" can I just import/export anytime I like, or
will various "good stuff" get lost.

Various stuff will get lost. Then you have the problem of loading various
stuff multiple times. That can be a bigger problem.

2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software for linux?
Alternatively, if someone could point me at a linux-centric list, or
review site, I could take it from there.

Gramps is the way to go. See:

http://gramps-project.org/

For non-GUI use, I understand lifelines was the standard GED-file utility
for many years.

For an overview of a lot of genealogy resources, see this link:

http://www.lkessler.com/gplinks.shtml

It's not the most up-to-date, but it is useful.

Remember that Linux runs WINE. A lot of small genealogical utilities
were written for the PC, but will run fine on Linux with WINE.

--
There is a pleasure in madness,
which none but madmen know.

-- John Dryden, 1631-1700

[singhals]

bugbear wrote:

I have 2 related questions.

1) How important is your choice of Genealogy Software?
In other words, if I made a bad choice, and found
a better program, how hard is to transfer information.

If all programs speak "ged" can I just import/export
anytime I like, or will various "good stuff" get lost.

Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.

As a rule-of-thumb, the more of the specialized nooks'n'crannies you use
in any program, the less will transfer successfully. If you ignore the
media files, the address book, the alternate-parent, the source citation
screens, and the like, and put everything into NOTES or More About or
whatever your program calls it, the more likely everything is to
transfer well.

And I think Gramps is the *ix program of choice. Don't speak it m'self,
though.

Cheryl

[Robert Melson]

In article <[email protected]>,
bugbear <bugbear@trim_papermule.co.uk_trim> writes:

I have 2 related questions.

1) How important is your choice of Genealogy Software?
In other words, if I made a bad choice, and found
a better program, how hard is to transfer information.

If all programs speak "ged" can I just import/export
anytime I like, or will various "good stuff" get lost.

2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software
for linux? Alternatively, if someone could point me
at a linux-centric list, or review site,
I could take it from there.

BugBear

There have been some good replies to your questions. Let me, though, add my
$0.02 to the discussion.

GRAMPS is a competent program that "speaks" gedcom 5.5. It's not the only
package out there, however:

(1) Older, klunkier, but undergoing some modernization - Lifelines. LL has
probbly the best, most extensible reports of any of the packages, *IX or PC -
if you care to take the time to learn its scripting language, you can customize
your reports to a fare-thee-well.;

(2) FTree -X11-based tree display/data-entry program, speaks standard
gedcom 5.5. Not as full featured as Gramps or lifelines, reports very limited,
and, yet, _I_ kinda like it for ease of use for data entry and tree views;

(3) If you have java runtime installed, check out GenealogyJ. This is written
by a buncha "Europeans" (not meant perjoratively, some of my best friends are
Europeans!), its user-interface is a bit quirky but it does a workmanlike job
for data entry and presentation. I've played with it to some extent and find
it annoying but YMMV.

(4) Again, if you have java runtime, check out GDBI. I'm not absolutely
certain it has a stand-alone mode - what I have installed works in conjunction
with phpGedView. GDBI provides a Brothers Keeper-like user interface, is full
featured and allows access to the LifeLines reports. By linking to phpGedView,
it eliminates the need for its own storage structure but relies, instead, on
that provided by GedView;

(5) phpGedView - web-based gedcom visualization; newest version uses one of
several RDBMS (MySQL, Postgres, SQL-Lite, etc) for data storage; on *IX systems
allows multi-user, collaborative work, information sharing; speaks gedcom 5.5;
fair number of useful reports, multiple ways ov viewing data. This and the
very similar TNG (The Next Generation ?) are probably over-kill if you're just
starting, although pGV + GDBI is arguably the best way to go for ease of data
entry, flexibility, range of reports available.

I have played around with all the programs listed and use pGV as my main
genealogy application - everybody here has seen my paeans in the past, so I
won't belabor the point. Given that as my 1st choice, I'd put Gramps in 2d
place, FTree in 3d and GenalogyJ in a somewhat distant 4th place. That's MY
take on it - YMMV, as they say, and I'd strongly recommend you give all of
them a look. pGV has a page on sourceforge, with a link to GDBI and GenealogyJ,
you can google for FTree, Gramps and LifeLines.

Hope this helps,

Bob Melson

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to
prove that the other party is unfit to rule---and both commonly succeed,
and are right." ---H. L. Mencken

[David Rowell]

bugbear wrote:

2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software
for linux? Alternatively, if someone could point me

BugBear

From what I've seen Gramps is THE Linux genealogy program. It has a
very nice user interface and is easy to learn, especially if you aren't
coming to Gramps with a lot of baggage from something else. It imports
and exports gedcom files successfully to PAF and Ancestral Quest
although some of the sources get messed up in import. Gramps is
presently in the process of updating to a new version - I wouldn't wait
tho. Support on the forum has been good and generally from the horse's
mouth.

The Gramps site previously mentioned has a link to d/l a live Ubuntu
6.06 LTS system with Gramps preinstalled. If you don't have Linux
installed I'd recommend it.

As far as Wine is concerned - I have not been able to get ANY good
Windoze genealogy program to run or, sometimes, even install. I really
want to get PAF5.2 running under Wine but haven't yet been able to as of
today. I've tried Ancestral Quest and Legacy - they won't install.
However, Wine is also in the throes of continual update heading toward a
new stable release version.

[Denis Beauregard]

Le Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:30:20 -0400, singhals <[email protected]>
écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:

Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.

Mauvais exemple. Au Canada, 25% de la population ne parle pas anglais


Bad example. In Canada, 25% of the population doesn't speak English



Denis

[Robert Melson]

In article <[email protected]>,
Denis Beauregard <[email protected]> writes:

Le Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:30:20 -0400, singhals <[email protected]
écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:

Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.

Mauvais exemple. Au Canada, 25% de la population ne parle pas anglais


Bad example. In Canada, 25% of the population doesn't speak English



Denis

And that leaves, what? 75% English speakers. That doesn't negate the original
comment at all. Unless, somehow, the 25% Francophone population constitutes
a national majority? Hmmmm. You may as well argue that the US is not an
English speaking country because some 20% of its population speak some form of
Spanish.

I think the point was that, even though "ged" is spoken by various programs
they're as likely to be as subtly (and not so subtly) different as are the
English "dialects" spoken in the US, UK and Canada (or any of the other
members and former members of the Commonwealth). Wasn't it Shaw who said that
Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language? Same holds
true for ged except at the most basic level.

Sweet Ol' Bob

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to
prove that the other party is unfit to rule---and both commonly succeed,
and are right." ---H. L. Mencken

[Denis Beauregard]

Le Tue, 06 Jun 2006 03:50:08 GMT, [email protected] (Robert
Melson) écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:

In article <[email protected]>,
Denis Beauregard <[email protected]> writes:
Le Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:30:20 -0400, singhals <[email protected]
?ivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:

Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.

Mauvais exemple. Au Canada, 25% de la population ne parle pas anglais


Bad example. In Canada, 25% of the population doesn't speak English



Denis


And that leaves, what? 75% English speakers. That doesn't negate the original
comment at all. Unless, somehow, the 25% Francophone population constitutes
a national majority? Hmmmm. You may as well argue that the US is not an
English speaking country because some 20% of its population speak some form of
Spanish.

The comment said "all genealogy softwares use GEDCOM" like all
Canadian etc. speaks English. The example is not a good one.
That's all. It is like to say all computers work with Windows XP,
which is not true.

I think the point was that, even though "ged" is spoken by various programs
they're as likely to be as subtly (and not so subtly) different as are the
English "dialects" spoken in the US, UK and Canada (or any of the other
members and former members of the Commonwealth). Wasn't it Shaw who said that
Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language? Same holds
true for ged except at the most basic level.

If it is a matter of accent, then it was not well written. Anyway,
most Americans will understand all what an English says. Very few
softwares (if any) will "understand" all varieties of Gedcom formats.


Denis

[bugbear]

David Rowell wrote:

bugbear wrote:

2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software
for linux? Alternatively, if someone could point me

BugBear


From what I've seen Gramps is THE Linux genealogy program. It has a
very nice user interface and is easy to learn, especially if you aren't
coming to Gramps with a lot of baggage from something else. It imports
and exports gedcom files successfully to PAF and Ancestral Quest
although some of the sources get messed up in import. Gramps is
presently in the process of updating to a new version - I wouldn't wait
tho. Support on the forum has been good and generally from the horse's
mouth.

The Gramps site previously mentioned has a link to d/l a live Ubuntu
6.06 LTS system with Gramps preinstalled. If you don't have Linux
installed I'd recommend it.

As far as Wine is concerned - I have not been able to get ANY good
Windoze genealogy program to run or, sometimes, even install. I really
want to get PAF5.2 running under Wine but haven't yet been able to as of
today. I've tried Ancestral Quest and Legacy - they won't install.
However, Wine is also in the throes of continual update heading toward a
new stable release version.

General question; I started this quest because a relative sent me some
(annotated) photographs.

Now, of course, many of the photographs are group
shots (wedding etcs), are should be "stored" against
each of the people in the photo.

So - do G. program allow
a) storage of multimedia (OK "scans")
b) multiple references to the sam item; ideally this should
be bi-directional so that the photo has links
to all the people, and the people all have links to the photo.

Actually, thinking on it, this would apply to any
reference material that applies to more than one
person.

BugBear

[cecilia]

Denis Beauregard wrote:

The comment said "all genealogy softwares use GEDCOM" like all
Canadian etc. speaks English. The example is not a good one.
That's all. It is like to say all computers work with Windows XP,
which is not true.

The comment actually said 'Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the
US, Canada, Australia, and England all speak English'

which is not the same as saying that everyone in any of those
countries speaks English, but that they are English-speaking
countries. However, the differences between the English spoken in
them can lead to failures in communication.

[One sees a generational shift as well. I remember my father
reporting a conversation with his granddaughter: "She says the
interview was 'wicked !!'. 'Wicked' is still good, isn't it?"]

[...] Very few
softwares (if any) will "understand" all varieties of Gedcom formats.

The point that was being made, I thought.

[Herman Viaene]

bugbear wrote:

David Rowell wrote:
bugbear wrote:

2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software
for linux? Alternatively, if someone could point me

BugBear


From what I've seen Gramps is THE Linux genealogy program. It has a
very nice user interface and is easy to learn, especially if you aren't
coming to Gramps with a lot of baggage from something else. It imports
and exports gedcom files successfully to PAF and Ancestral Quest
although some of the sources get messed up in import. Gramps is
presently in the process of updating to a new version - I wouldn't wait
tho. Support on the forum has been good and generally from the horse's
mouth.

The Gramps site previously mentioned has a link to d/l a live Ubuntu
6.06 LTS system with Gramps preinstalled. If you don't have Linux
installed I'd recommend it.

As far as Wine is concerned - I have not been able to get ANY good
Windoze genealogy program to run or, sometimes, even install. I really
want to get PAF5.2 running under Wine but haven't yet been able to as of
today. I've tried Ancestral Quest and Legacy - they won't install.
However, Wine is also in the throes of continual update heading toward a
new stable release version.

I use Gramps on Mandriva LE2005, no complaints for Gramps nor Mandriva. I
once tried Suse, but found much less resources for additional programs than
for Mandriva, so I returned to Mandriva.

General question; I started this quest because a relative sent me some
(annotated) photographs.

Now, of course, many of the photographs are group
shots (wedding etcs), are should be "stored" against
each of the people in the photo.

So - do G. program allow
a) storage of multimedia (OK "scans")

In general, yes. But I have not tried every possible file format for
"scans", so .....?

b) multiple references to the sam item; ideally this should
be bi-directional so that the photo has links
to all the people, and the people all have links to the photo.

Actually, thinking on it, this would apply to any
reference material that applies to more than one
person.

In Gramps, you can view/edit Persons and attach imagery in the "Gallery".
You can also view the "Media" and in the properties of each item, there is
a tab "References" where the occurences of this item are listed.

Herman Viaene

[bugbear]

Herman Viaene wrote:

General question; I started this quest because a relative sent me some
(annotated) photographs.

Now, of course, many of the photographs are group
shots (wedding etcs), are should be "stored" against
each of the people in the photo.

So - do G. program allow
a) storage of multimedia (OK "scans")


In general, yes. But I have not tried every possible file format for
"scans", so .....?

b) multiple references to the sam item; ideally this should
be bi-directional so that the photo has links
to all the people, and the people all have links to the photo.

Actually, thinking on it, this would apply to any
reference material that applies to more than one
person.


In Gramps, you can view/edit Persons and attach imagery in the "Gallery".
You can also view the "Media" and in the properties of each item, there is
a tab "References" where the occurences of this item are listed.

Sounds ideal. Thank you.

BugBear

[David Rowell]

General question; I started this quest because a relative sent me some
(annotated) photographs.

Now, of course, many of the photographs are group
shots (wedding etcs), are should be "stored" against
each of the people in the photo.

So - do G. program allow
a) storage of multimedia (OK "scans")
b) multiple references to the sam item; ideally this should
be bi-directional so that the photo has links
to all the people, and the people all have links to the photo.

Actually, thinking on it, this would apply to any
reference material that applies to more than one
person.

BugBear

In a word - yes, I believe Gramps supports all those options.

[singhals]

Denis Beauregard wrote:

Le Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:30:20 -0400, singhals <[email protected]
écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:


Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.


Mauvais exemple. Au Canada, 25% de la population ne parle pas anglais


Bad example. In Canada, 25% of the population doesn't speak English

You mean, Quebec won?

Cheryl

[Joe User]

On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 20:19:33 +0000, David Rowell wrote:

bugbear wrote:

2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software for linux?
Alternatively, if someone could point me

BugBear

From what I've seen Gramps is THE Linux genealogy program.

One thing I neglected to mention about Gramps in my previous post is that
it is slow if you have a big database. If you have less than 5,000 or so
individuals in your database, it will work fine. But, over that it will
get slow quickly.

It seems to be because of the database backend it uses.

--
The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray.

-- Robert G. Ingersoll

[Denis Beauregard]

Le Tue, 06 Jun 2006 11:26:38 -0400, singhals <[email protected]>
écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:

Denis Beauregard wrote:

Le Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:30:20 -0400, singhals <[email protected]
écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:


Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.


Mauvais exemple. Au Canada, 25% de la population ne parle pas anglais


Bad example. In Canada, 25% of the population doesn't speak English


You mean, Quebec won?

When Quebec will be independent, then you will have English only in
Canada and the example will be correct.


Denis

[Joe Makowiec]

On 06 Jun 2006 in soc.genealogy.computing, Denis Beauregard wrote:

When Quebec will be independent, then you will have English only in
Canada and the example will be correct.

But New Brunswick is officially bilingual, and there are pockets of
French all around l'Acadie, including l'Université Ste-Anne in Pointe-de-
L'Église.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe

[Leif B. Kristensen]

bugbear skrev:

2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software
for linux? Alternatively, if someone could point me
at a linux-centric list, or review site,
I could take it from there.

I've built my own genealogy program on Linux with PostgreSQL and PHP. It
wasn't that hard, as I had an excellent starting point in the data
dumped from The Master Genealogist, my program of choice when I was
running Windows, along with some knowledge of SQL and PHP from the
experience of building my own Web presentation software. I've actually
reused a lot of the codebase from that project.

I've recently committed my third article of the process at my Web site:
<http://solumslekt.org/forays/exodus.php>.
--
Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009
http://solumslekt.org/ | Cruising with Gentoo/KDE

[Denis Beauregard]

Le Tue, 06 Jun 2006 19:04:22 GMT, Joe Makowiec
<[email protected]> écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:

On 06 Jun 2006 in soc.genealogy.computing, Denis Beauregard wrote:

When Quebec will be independent, then you will have English only in
Canada and the example will be correct.

But New Brunswick is officially bilingual, and there are pockets of
French all around l'Acadie, including l'Université Ste-Anne in Pointe-de-
L'Église.

There are pockets in Ontario too. But at this time, the next
generation is often switching to English in those pockets. You
can check about the "assimilation rate". Without Quebec, French
will be the 3rd or 4th language in Canada by population. I think
Chinese is already the 2nd (out of Quebec and because of massive
immigration from Hong Kong in 1997).

In one name studies, you have to find those language pockets even
if they are meaningfull only for early migrations.


Denis

[bugbear]

Leif B. Kristensen wrote:

bugbear skrev:


2) What is the best choice of Genealogy Software software
for linux? Alternatively, if someone could point me
at a linux-centric list, or review site,
I could take it from there.


I've built my own genealogy program on Linux with PostgreSQL and PHP. It
wasn't that hard

Did you want a challenge, or percieve some massive
lack in Gramps?

BugBear

[Leif B. Kristensen]

bugbear skrev:

Leif B. Kristensen wrote:

I've built my own genealogy program on Linux with PostgreSQL and PHP.
It wasn't that hard

Did you want a challenge, or percieve some massive
lack in Gramps?

I tried Gramps for around half an hour before I decided that it wasn't
my idea of a genealogy program. Having been a TMG user for eight years,
I've grown too accustomed to the concepts of that program to easily
shift to another one. It's like driving in England, on the wrong side
of the road.

Besides, I had most of the presentation part ready three years ago.
Filling in with some registration routines have actually been easy in
comparison.
--
Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009
http://solumslekt.org/ | Cruising with Gentoo/KDE

[bugbear]

Leif B. Kristensen wrote:

bugbear skrev:


Leif B. Kristensen wrote:

I've built my own genealogy program on Linux with PostgreSQL and PHP.
It wasn't that hard

Did you want a challenge, or percieve some massive
lack in Gramps?


I tried Gramps for around half an hour before I decided that it wasn't
my idea of a genealogy program. Having been a TMG user for eight years,
I've grown too accustomed to the concepts of that program to easily
shift to another one. It's like driving in England, on the wrong side
of the road.

Besides, I had most of the presentation part ready three years ago.
Filling in with some registration routines have actually been easy in
comparison.

And please accept my apologies; your site expounds
your motivation rather well.

I should have read it before asking.

BugBear

[Hugh Watkins]

Leif B. Kristensen wrote:

bugbear skrev:


Leif B. Kristensen wrote:

I've built my own genealogy program on Linux with PostgreSQL and PHP.
It wasn't that hard

Did you want a challenge, or percieve some massive
lack in Gramps?


I tried Gramps for around half an hour before I decided that it wasn't
my idea of a genealogy program. Having been a TMG user for eight years,
I've grown too accustomed to the concepts of that program to easily
shift to another one. It's like driving in England, on the wrong side
of the road.

Besides, I had most of the presentation part ready three years ago.
Filling in with some registration routines have actually been easy in
comparison.

can you export / import standad gedcom?


Hugh W

[Leif B. Kristensen]

Hugh Watkins skrev:

can you export / import standad gedcom?

As this so far has been a very personal project, and I've been
transferring the data directly from TMG with some custom routines, I
haven't bothered about GEDCOM routines. But a public application should
of course need some standard import / export routines, and I'd
certainly like to welcome aboard anyone who would want to write a
GEDCOM module for it. I know that there's an excellent Perl module for
exactly this purpose.

The source part of this project is a tree structure, as outlined in the
GDM manuscript, and thus breaks completely with the GEDCOM data model.
In this respect, there's probably no way to escape from a lot of manual
restructuring in case of a transfer from or to another program. That
was also the heaviest part of my transition from TMG, but now I'm very
happy about the hierarchic sources. The rest of the model should be
fairly easy to implement in GEDCOM.

According to standard software development terminology, the project is
still in the "Proof of Concept" stage. But I'd like to take this
opportunity to welcome anyone who thinks that there is a potential for
a public project here, and who'd like to participate, to contact me at
the address leif at solumslekt dot org. In particular, I'd love to hear
from anyone who has some experience with project management in the Open
Source world. I registered a project with Sourceforge for exactly this
purpose over a year ago, but so far it has been unused.
--
Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009
http://solumslekt.org/ | Cruising with Gentoo/KDE

[Tehenne]

singhals <[email protected]> wrote:

Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.

Kezako ! Is there a particular way of speaking GED as one is
English-speaking or not ? Precision !

--
Téhenne Saint-Denis de la Réunion

Comparatif Import-Export Gedcom : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/cajun/
Logiciel de généalogie ohmiGene : http://www.nauze.com/
for MacOS X, Windows et Linux (beta).

[Denis Beauregard]

Le Fri, 9 Jun 2006 05:52:54 +0400, [email protected] (Tehenne)
écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:

singhals <[email protected]> wrote:

Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.

Kezako ! Is there a particular way of speaking GED as one is
English-speaking or not ? Precision !

Ils sont dans le champ ! Pour eux, la différence d'accent entre
l'anglais parlé dans ces pays est comme la différence entre les
sortes de formats Gedcom. Pourtant, les Gedcom sont souvent
différents parce qu'il y a des concepts différents dans les bases
de données des logiciels alors que lorsqu'on compare les variations
d'une même langue, on a les mêmes concepts prononcés différemment
ou avec un autre mot.


Denis

[Robert Melson]

In article <[email protected]>,
Denis Beauregard <[email protected]> writes:

Le Fri, 9 Jun 2006 05:52:54 +0400, [email protected] (Tehenne)
écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:

singhals <[email protected]> wrote:

Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.

Kezako ! Is there a particular way of speaking GED as one is
English-speaking or not ? Precision !

Ils sont dans le champ ! Pour eux, la différence d'accent entre
l'anglais parlé dans ces pays est comme la différence entre les
sortes de formats Gedcom. Pourtant, les Gedcom sont souvent
différents parce qu'il y a des concepts différents dans les bases
de données des logiciels alors que lorsqu'on compare les variations
d'une même langue, on a les mêmes concepts prononcés différemment
ou avec un autre mot.


Denis

If my now 50 year unused French doesn't mislead me, I don't think I could have
said it better had I tried (certainly NOT en Francais!) While most genealogy
programs "speak" gedcom v5.5, most have some non-standard extensions the others
do not/will not recognize, creating a dialect, if you will, of the base
language, much as US, UK and Canadian English differ among themselves while
still being, arguably, the same language. Part is pronunciation, part is
colloquial usage, part sheer human cussedness. I venture to suggest that there
is a similar situation between Quebequois French, Parisian French and, oh, the
French spoken in Zaire or elsewhere in francophone Africa or Haiti.

Anybody read a good Maigret mystery lately?

Swell Ol' Bob


--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to
prove that the other party is unfit to rule---and both commonly succeed,
and are right." ---H. L. Mencken

[Denis Beauregard]

Le Fri, 09 Jun 2006 02:53:54 GMT, [email protected] (Robert
Melson) écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:

If my now 50 year unused French doesn't mislead me, I don't think I could have
said it better had I tried (certainly NOT en Francais!) While most genealogy
programs "speak" gedcom v5.5, most have some non-standard extensions the others
do not/will not recognize, creating a dialect, if you will, of the base

It is not only a matter of dialect.

If you speak English in 2006 in England or USA, while you may use
different words, you will say the same thing, i.e. the same concepts.

Comparing varieties of Gedcom is more like comparing the English of
2006 with that of 1500. Try to describe a computer with the words
used by Shakespeare for example. Or ask to a Londonian to describe
a baseball game.

Gedcoms are linked to a database structure. If the structure is
different, then you just can't exchange data because you have no
place to receive the specific data of the imported database. When
you display a summary of a Gedcom file, then you can skip some
concept the program can't handle, or you can display it as is. A
human can fill the differences while a standard genealogy software
can't.

language, much as US, UK and Canadian English differ among themselves while
still being, arguably, the same language. Part is pronunciation, part is
colloquial usage, part sheer human cussedness. I venture to suggest that there
is a similar situation between Quebequois French, Parisian French and, oh, the
French spoken in Zaire or elsewhere in francophone Africa or Haiti.

You have at least 2 different ways of comparing Gedcom to varieties of
French languages. On one hand, the accent or pronunciation. Even
inside Quebec you can see the differences and know that someone was
rised in Montreal, Quebec City or Lac St-Jean (like you can see if
someone was rised in Texas or Vermont I presume). On the other hand,
don't ask to a French man to describe a baseball game (or even a
hockey game). The sport is not as popular in France so the glossary
will be different (fine tuned words on one hand, coarse translations
on the other hand). Lacking concepts is really something closer to
gedcom differences than pronunciation.

Anybody read a good Maigret mystery lately?

I did so years ago. Now reading many books by Serge Brussolo (he
wrote many novels occuring at the medieval time).


Denis

--
0 Denis Beauregard -
/\/ Les Français d'Amérique - http://www.francogene.com/genealogie-quebec/
|\ French in North America before 1721 - http://www.francogene.com/quebec-genealogy/
/ | Mon association de généalogie:
oo oo http://www.genealogie.org/club/sglj/index2.html (soc. de gén. de La Jemmerais)

[singhals]

Denis Beauregard wrote:

Le Fri, 9 Jun 2006 05:52:54 +0400, [email protected] (Tehenne)
écrivait dans soc.genealogy.computing:


singhals <[email protected]> wrote:


Well, all programs speak "ged" the way the US, Canada, Australia, and
England all speak English.

Kezako ! Is there a particular way of speaking GED as one is
English-speaking or not ? Precision !


Ils sont dans le champ ! Pour eux, la différence d'accent entre
l'anglais parlé dans ces pays est comme la différence entre les
sortes de formats Gedcom. Pourtant, les Gedcom sont souvent
différents parce qu'il y a des concepts différents dans les bases
de données des logiciels alors que lorsqu'on compare les variations
d'une même langue, on a les mêmes concepts prononcés différemment
ou avec un autre mot.


Denis

I *knew* Denis saw my point. (g)