Skip to content

Genealogy software wishlist

Okay, so here’s what I wish I had available in a software package. Any mad coders out there feel like putting it together? ;) (This has been submitted to the LazyWeb.)

  • A web-driven genealogy software package (PHP/Perl/Python with a database backend?).
  • One page per family member, able to display (at minimum, though not all items would necessarily exist for every page):
    • Links to immediate family members (one degree of seperation: parents, siblings, spouses, children).
    • Vital statistics (birth, marriage, divorce, death). This could be expanded to include christening, baptism, etc. for situations where such dates are recorded.
    • Biographical and/or historical information — stories, memories, etc.
    • Pictures.
    • Contact info for still-living members.
  • User registration.
  • Logged-in users would be able to easily edit any individual page on the tree to add memories, stories, information, etc. (Wiki-style ‘edit this page’ links?).
  • Logged-in users should also be able to create new pages for family members not already in the tree. New pages should follow a template to ensure that a consistent look-and-feel is maintained as much as possible.
  • Wiki-like ease in adding pages and linking pages together. IE, one of the things I really like about the Wiki concept is how easy it is to (in this concept) let the tree grow. When creating my page, all I had to do was add WikiWords for my relatives, and I could then jump to and create/edit their pages. Functionality such as this is far easier than having to log into a central database and create new records for each new entry and then have to go back and edit all pages that would link to the new entry.
    • I’m still not sure how to best work around the issue with multiple family members with the same name.
  • Administrators should be able to review and approve/disapprove new users, get a list of recent changes, possibly approve/disapprove page edits before incorporation (this is optional, I think).
  • HTML output should be clean, standards-compliant, using CSS for styling, etc.
  • RSS/XML/Atom feeds of recently changed/added pages (preferably with an option to subscribe to either ‘minimal’ feeds listing only changed pages, ‘short’ feeds listing the edited page and the changes, and ‘full’ feeds listing the edited pages and the full text with changes marked in some way).
  • (This might be pipe dream territory) A dynamically-generated (Java? DHTML?) overview of the tree or branches of the tree. I’m visualizing being able to start with a simple tree of one nuclear family. Lines leading away from members would indicate further information along the branch. Clicking on a member (parent, spouse, child, etc.) would “slide” the display to that member’s nuclear family. “Zoom out” would allow more branches to be viewed (and would need a “Zoom in” control to return to a single-family view. “Detail” links on each member would lead to the individual member’s page (which would have a “View tree” link to switch to the dynamic tree view).
  • Possibly more as I come up with it.

If I had the time, I’d start diving heavily into PHP (or Perl, or Python)/MySQL and start attempting to build this myself. However, I don’t have the time, and something tells me that this might be complex enough to be fairly overwhelming as a first project.

If this software existed, I’d gladly pay for it (hopefully it would be within my price range, of course). At the moment, if anyone feels up to attempting to code it together, I’d gladly beta test!

So how crazy am I? How does this feature wish list sound? Is there already something out there on the ‘net that might cover some or all of this (aside from Wiki, which I’m already exploring) that I haven’t found yet?

Questions, comments, and words of wisdom are, as always, appreciated.

Update: Hot damn — PhpGedView just might be it!

Posted in Technology, Website.

By Michael Hanscom
February 18, 2004

13 comments

13 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. kirsten said
    on February 18, 2004

    hey mr. standards compliant, close your (u) tag. ;) everything is underlined!

  2. Michael Hanscom said
    on February 18, 2004

    Got it…thanks!

  3. Roper said
    on February 20, 2004

    I have PHPGedView loaded, it’s okay.. TNG (php, mysql based) is much better (imho).

    http://lythgoes.net/genealogy/software.php

  4. Michael Hanscom said
    on February 20, 2004

    Thanks much, Roper, I’ll have to look into that. It’s definitely prettier than PhpGedView…I’ll poke around at their site and see what I think. Any chance you could give a quick rundown of the pros (as you see them) of TNG over PGV?

  5. Greg said
    on February 25, 2004

    I’m also hunting for a web based genealogy package and found this one -

    http://lythgoes.net/genealogy/software.php

    It’s not free, but just $25.00 US and looks pretty well put together.

    Good luck, GDD

  6. brian said
    on February 25, 2004

    Some interesting ideas for the future! How does the present look?

  7. John Coe said
    on March 7, 2004

    Semantic Web is about distributed knowledge, RDF&OWL provide tools for ‘web of trust’ data access. RDF descriptions of genealogy do not include details of people, but do include attributes that are search criteria and pointers(file#recordid) to data in xml or xhtml. I have a Google Search Engine interface that can search on RDF descriptions.I also have a program that creates RDF headers from GEDCOM 6.0 or GeniML files.If there is a market, I may be able to extend it extract genealogy data from existing HTML files. The dynamic tree view that you suggest is possible, with your data overlayed on web accessed trees.

    WIKI is a open trust. WebDAV is closer to the web of trust. http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/

    Look at FOAF for an example or starting point! http://xml.mfd-consult.dk/foaf/explorer/

  8. Hugh Roper said
    on April 14, 2004

    I forgot about his post. In case your still interested… here’s the rundown on TNG:

    • Web-driven - Check (PHP, MySQL) • One page per person - Check including all the sub items (I’m starting to link images from the weblog posts to the individuals in TNG) • User registration - Check (including ability to limit specifics (i.e. LDS information just for specific users) • Logged-in users easily edit - Check • Logged-in users create new individuals - Check • Wiki - ? • Admin new users approval? Admin recent changes - Check (including RSS of recent changes in the next version • HTML, CSS - Check (probably could be better, but you can always edit the php files • RSS/XML/ATOM feeds… RSS feed of recent changes in the next version due in a couple weeks. Some that knows php well should be able to write their own php feed pages. • Dynamic overview… It has a static php overview that works well, but not quite what your dreaming of.

  9. Michael Hanscom said
    on April 14, 2004

    Thanks for the update, Hugh. I’m definitely interested, but the project has gone on hold for a bit until I get the genealogical information from my folks. Once it comes in, though, I’ll definitely be taking a look at TNG — from what you’re saying, it looks to be pretty worthwhile.

  10. Dan Hanks said
    on April 15, 2004

    I’m currently developing something akin to this at the moment, in my limited spare time using Perl + Postgresql. I’ve tried phpgedview, but found it lacking in flexibility, but I think that’s because it’s based on GEDCOM (which is good, but not as flexible as I’d like in storing source documention). Shoot me an email and I can point you to a page outlining where I’d like to go with it. (I’m not quite ready to make that public yet).

  11. Matt Garner said
    on February 4, 2006

    I was inspired several months ago by this post to build a system that could handle some of these features. The end result is PedigreeSoft.com which turns out to be like a webbased version of PAF or FTM, except multiuser. It accepts GEDCOM import. As I have more time and resources, I’ll try to continue to implement more of the functions desired here. Take a look at http://www.pedigreesoft.com .

  12. Denis Collis said
    on February 22, 2006

    I see that interest waned 2 years ago. Except for Matt Garner’s, that is. Well I’m also interested in an on-line genealogy database.

    I’ve checked out PedegreeSoft and TNG and I must say that in both cases the presentation layout isn’t inspired.

    I really like the presentation and layout of the off-line, Mac-based Reunion software. It allows you to upload an entire web site (unfortunately flat html files). Check out an example here

    Better would be an XML transfer to the on-line database, and than an ability to automatically synchronize the off-line and on-line databases.

    The search continues…

  13. Mike Gashler said
    on October 5, 2006

    I’m a developer on the http://gnuology.sf.net project. This project seems to have most of the things on your wish list.

HTML stripped, use Markdown [?] for formatting.

(required)

(required, but never shared)

or, reply to this post via trackback.

Note: This post is over 5 years old. You may want to check later in this blog to see if there is new information relevant to your comment.