Richard Smith wrote: > I've spent years looking for decent genealogy software that suits my > needs, and I'm almost at the stage of giving up and writing my own. > However, before I do that, I thought I'd ask on this newsgroup whether > anyone has any suggestions of suitable software. > > Most products I've tried are far too lineage-oriented. That's perhaps > okay for storing the results of my research, but that's not what I'm > after. I want something much more event-oriented that can store the > research itself. I want to record that I found John Smith on the 1881 > census, two plausible John Smiths on the 1851 census, and three > possible baptisms. I want to be able to record what the record says, > not what I think it probably means, including the different spellings > used in different sources. Although that seems a reasonable enough > requirement, a lot of products make it hard to use them like that. > Entering census data is often particularly tedious. > > If I only wanted to do that, I'd probably just use a spreadsheet. But > I also want an application that can let me say that I currently > believe the John Smith on the 1881 census is the same person as the > John Smith who was listed in the 1851 census on North Street, not the > one on South Street, and that I don't believe this person is the same > as any of the baptisms. And I'd like to be able to do this in a way > that's easy to change when new evidence comes to light. This seems > very hard in most of the products I've tried, and nigh-on impossible > for negative assertions like "the John Smith on the 1881 census was > not either of three baptisms found". I've also never found software > that can cope satisfactorily with relationships more complicated than > simple parent-child ones. For example, I would like to be able to say > "John was the grandson of Thomas, and probably the son of Thomas's son > Henry, though possibly an illegitimate son of Thomas's daughter > Sarah". That's certainly something that a computer program ought to > be able to handle in a structured fashion, but, again, I've never > found one that can. > > My second requirement is that the software runs on Linux and doesn't > require me to be connected to the Internet. (So a web-based program > is fine, but only if I can install it locally.) If it were open > source, that would be an added bonus, but it's not a requirement. My > only other requirement is that the program must be able to export its > database in some vaguely usable format and re-import it again. It's > probably best if it's not GEDCOM because I doubt GEDCOM will map > cleanly enough to the sort of concepts the program needs, but some XML > format (even if it's undocumented) would be perfect. > > I'm not aware of anything that comes close to this. Even without the > requirements that it runs on Linux and has an export format, I'm not > aware of anything, and that strikes me as surprising. Surely my first > requirement is just basic good practice? And whilst I'm sure that a > lot of research is not done to particularly good standards, surely > most software vendors must be familiar with what good research > entails? So I'm really hoping that someone will be able to point me > towards some really good piece of software that I've somehow > overlooked. > I think your requirements ought to be met by all genealogical S/W (give or take choice of platform). I doubt they're met by any. -- Ian The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang at austonley org uk