Gramps (formerly GRAMPS, an acronym for Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming System) is a

free and open source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

genealogy software Genealogy software is computer software used to record, organize, and publish genealogical data. Features At a minimum, genealogy software collects the date and place of an individual's birth, marriage, and death, and stores the relationships o ...

. Gramps is programmed in

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

using

PyGObject PyGTK is a set of Python wrappers for the GTK graphical user interface library. PyGTK is free software and licensed under the LGPL. It is analogous to PyQt/PySide and wxPython, the Python wrappers for Qt and wxWidgets, respectively. Its origi ...

. It uses

Graphviz Graphviz (short for ''Graph Visualization Software'') is a package of open-source tools initiated by AT&T Labs Research for drawing graphs specified in DOT language scripts having the file name extension "gv". It also provides libraries for sof ...

to create relationship graphs. Gramps is a rare example of

commons-based peer production Commons-based peer production (CBPP) is a term coined by Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler. It describes a model of socio-economic production in which large numbers of people work cooperatively; usually over the Internet. Commons-based p ...

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

created by genealogists, for genealogists. It has been described as intuitive and easy-to-use for hobbyists and "feature-complete for professional genealogists". The program is acknowledged as "most popular FOSS program for genealogy" by Eastman and others. The Australian consumer advocacy group,

CHOICE A choice is the range of different things from which a being can choose. The arrival at a choice may incorporate motivators and models. For example, a traveler might choose a route for a journey based on the preference of arriving at a giv ...

, has recommended Gramps. The program is extensible such that, in addition to human

family trees A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms. Representations of ...

, it has been used to create animal pedigree charts as well as

academic genealogy An academic, or scientific genealogy organizes a family tree of scientists and scholars according to mentoring relationships, often in the form of dissertation supervision relationships, and not according to genetic relationships as in conventio ...

showing mentoring relationships between scientists, physicians, and scholars.

Features

Gramps is one of the biggest offline genealogy suites available. Features include: * Supports multiple languages and cultures, including patronymic, matronymic, and multiple surname systems. ** Full

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

support. ** Relationship calculators. Some languages have relationship terminology with no proper translation to other languages. Gramps deals with this by allowing for language specific relationship calculators. * Generates reports in multiple formats, including

.odt The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed w ...

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

.pdf Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

.rtf ) As an example, the following RTF code would be rendered as follows: This is some bold text. Character encoding A standard RTF file can only consist of 7-bit ASCII characters, but can use escape sequences to encode other characters. Th ...

, .html, and

.txt A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flatfile) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In operat ...

. * Produces a wide variety of reports and charts, including relationship graphs that of large complex acyclic charts. * Gramps is easily extended via plugins called Gramplets. A Gramplet is a view of data that either changes dynamically during the running of Gramps, or provides interactivity to your genealogical data. * Gramps employs an explicit event-centric documentation approach, similar to the

CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) provides an extensible ontology for concepts and information in cultural heritage and museum documentation. It is the international standard (ISO 21127:2014) for the controlled exchange of cultural her ...

used by many cultural heritage institutions. * "Sanity check" flagging of improbable events, such as births involving people extremely young or old. * Support for multiple calendars, e.g.

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...

Julian calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandr ...

Islamic calendar The Hijri calendar ( ar, ٱلتَّقْوِيم ٱلْهِجْرِيّ, translit=al-taqwīm al-hijrī), also known in English as the Muslim calendar and Islamic calendar, is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or ...

, etc. * Complete programmer's API documentation with free and open source code made publicly available.

File format

The core export file format of Gramps is named Gramps XML and uses the

file extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...

.gramps. It is extended from

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

. Gramps XML is a

free format An open file format is a file format for storing digital data, defined by an openly published specification usually maintained by a standards organization, and which can be used and implemented by anyone. Open file format is licensed with open lic ...

. Gramps usually compresses Gramps XML files with

gzip gzip is a file format and a software application used for file compression and decompression. The program was created by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler as a free software replacement for the compress program used in early Unix systems, and in ...

. The file format Portable Gramps XML Package uses the extension .gpkg and is currently a .tar.gz archive including Gramps XML together with all referenced media. The user may rename the file extension .gramps to .gz for editing the content of the genealogy document with a text editor. Internally, Gramps uses

SQLite SQLite (, ) is a database engine written in the C programming language. It is not a standalone app; rather, it is a library that software developers embed in their apps. As such, it belongs to the family of embedded databases. It is the most ...

as the default database backend, with other databases available as plugins. Gramps can import from the following formats: Gramps XML, Gramps Package (Portable Gramps XML), Gramps 2.x .grdb (older versions Gramps),

GEDCOM GEDCOM ( ), complete name FamilySearch GEDCOM, is a ''de facto'' open file format specification to store genealogical data, and import or export it between compatible genealogy software. GEDCOM is an acronym standing for ''Genealogical Data Commu ...

, CSV. Gramps supports exporting data in the following formats: Gramps XML, Gramps Package (Portable Gramps XML),

GeneWeb GeneWeb is a free multi-platform genealogy software tool created and owned by Daniel de Rauglaudre of INRIA. GeneWeb is accessed by a Web browser, either off-line or as a server in a Web environment. It uses very efficient techniques of relatio ...

's GW format, Web Family Tree (.WFT) format,

vCard vCard, also known as VCF (Virtual Contact File), is a file format standard for electronic business cards. vCards can be attached to e-mail messages, sent via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), on the World Wide Web, instant messaging, NFC or ...

vCalendar The Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar) is a media type which allows users to store and exchange calendaring and scheduling information such as events, to-dos, journal entries, and free/busy information, an ...

, CSV.

Programs that support Gramps XML

PhpGedView PhpGedView is a free PHP-based web application for working with genealogy data on the Internet. The project was founded and is headed by John Finlay. It is licensed under the GPL-2.0-or-later license. PhpGedView is hosted on SourceForge, where i ...

(version 4.1 and up) supports output to Gramps XML. * The script tmg2gramps by Anne Jessel converts The Master Genealogist v6 genealogy software datafile to a Gramps v2.2.6 XML. * The Gramps

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

component JoomlaGen for

Joomla Joomla (), also spelled Joomla! (with an exclamation mark) and sometimes abbreviated as J!, is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) for publishing web content on websites. Web content applications include discussion forums, ph ...

uses an upload of the GRAMPS XML database export to show genealogical information and overviews. JoomlaGen is compatible with GRAMPS 3.3.0.
Betty
by Bart Feenstra generates static websites from Gramps XML and Gramps XML Package files as alternatives to GEDCOM.

Languages

Gramps is available in 45 languages (December 2014). Gramps also has two special use sub-translation languages: * ''Animal pedigree'' which allows to keep track of the pedigree and breed of animals * ''Same gender/sex'' which gives the option of removing gender-biased verbiage from reports.

Release history

The project began as GRAMPS in 2001, and the first stable release was in 2004. The following table shows a selected history of new feature releases for project. (Patches and bug fixes are published on GitHub and periodically collated in minor "bug fix" releases.)
Full history of previous releases

Features

File format

Programs that support Gramps XML

Languages

Release history

References

External links