Research Forum

Gramps is not only a good quality program for family tree work but as it's free, community software it also fits with the spirit and ethos of sharing that permeates the efforts of all family historians.

Visit this page to get as taste of some of its features.

And get a copy for your operating system from the downloads page of the project.

If you take the plunge and start using this free software product, then it may be your first ever introduction to the world of free software, what it is and what it can do for you. It covers practically all of what most of us would ever want to do with a computer and does it more economically (free!), more effectively, more elegantly, more robustly, and more securely.

That last point is highly significant: you can get free operating systems that are "secure by design" - which means they are written with network security at its core. This makes for an operating system so secure that it doesn't even need anti-virus and any other kind of malware protection. It is simply as impregnable to attack as it is possible for an operating system to be.

Contrast that with every single release of Microsoft Windows: all of them are so insecure that they need extra bolt on anti-virus software products to protect them from over 1 million different kinds of threats.

Compare that that to operating systems link BSD or Linux, which have been attacked ZERO times, or Apple Mac which has not been attacked very often (though how often is speculative as Apple are rather secretive about it - which is polite way of saying they don't always tell the truth on matters of security!)

In addition to the above raft of rock solid technical benefits, you would also find a "free" Linux desktop easier to use. It might actually see you enjoy using a computer - possibly for the first time!

Imagine that: a computer that does what you want, without obscure delays, that doesn't randomly lock up for no reason, that doesn't constantly ask you to reboot every time you make a tiny change, that cannot be attacked by viruses or taken over remotely by villains, that never degrades in performance - ever, nor needs any kind of maintenance.

And all for free.

You all know it from bitter personal experience. Windows operating systems from XP, Vista (a complete disaster), Windows 7 and 8, are all hard work, not easy or pleasant to use. And certainly not easy to maintain either. Windows 10 is a radical change so brings its own hurdles into being.

So, start with Gramps. Then consider LibreOffice as your next step. It is a full feature office suite for the 21st century that describes itself as being about people, culture, creation, sharing and collaboration - so, again it fits with the ethos of all family historians out there. Besides, it is insane to pay Microsoft for their bloated office suite when you can get a comparable (some think far superior) product for free. Then, if you want to know more about a desktop that you can work with, just ask a friendly, knowledgeable enthusiast - i.e. me!

Apart from anything else, a free Linux desktop will greatly improve the efficiency, and pleasure, of your family research!

Kevan
Web developer of this site which is built entirely from free software.

I concur completely with the above comment.  I've been a user of Gramps for some time and have found it very useful and easy to use.

As an aside, I also agree with his comments about the relative merits of Linux compared to Windows.  Having experimented with various forms of Linux over the years I've settled on Linux Mint.  It's free, easy to use, readily available for download and, crucially, is relatively bug-free.  As a bonus, Linux users are almost entirely safe from virus attacks.  I may not be as knowledgable as Kevan but I am as enthusiastic on the subject!

Several members of our family history group have had the same problems with recent versions of Windows. When you try to use FamilyTreeMaker, you get a message which says it is incompatible. If youe ignore the 'Fix' option and click the 'Run, Anyway', your version of FamilyTreeMaker will run perfectly the same is it did before - well mine does, anyway. I have been doing this for years. You may, however, prefer one of the newer all-singing, all-dancing pieces of software.

Hi

You have to remember that Microsoft are the largest builder supplier of OS in the world.

Windows is designed to do 100s of task  for millions of users.  and as such tends to be averagly good at most of them but not excellent at any. That being said - and as an apple user - windows does have issues with security etc but apple and unix are not immune. Unix primarily is used to run specific software and is therefore not subject to as many attacks but when you consider that banks, tghe NHS and the DHSS run Unix based systems you will remember that they have been hacked with malware etc etc.

Much of the software that  "has issues" with windows 10 have these issues because the software developer has not included windows 10 support the specification for which has been available for some time.

With reference to family tree maker MS has considered such software and has specific modes to prevent problems. Try running in comptibility mode which allows you to run in xp, windows 7 and 8 modes.

If all else fails then you could run a virtual hard drive and OS. It's supplied free by MS so you could run your program in that.

Like anything to do with PC's there are many differenct solutions but in my view changing software is not always the best solutions as data losss etc can happen. GED files in my experience are not 100% reliable.

HTH

Ian