<_tip number="1">A range of dates can be given by using the format "between January 4, 2000 and March 20, 2003" <_tip number="2"> In most cases double clicking on a name, source, place or media entry will bring up a window to allow you to edit the object. Note that the result can be dependent on context. For example, in the Family View clicking on a parent or child will bring up the relationship editor. <_tip number="3">An image can be added to any gallery or the Media View by dragging and dropping it from a file manager or a web browser. <_tip number="4">Birth order of children in a family can be set, even if they do not have birth dates, by using drag and drop. <_tip number="5"> Talk to Relatives Before It Is Too Late: Your oldest relatives can be your most important source of information. They usually know things about the family that haven't been written down. They might tell you nuggets about people that may one day lead to a new avenue of research. At the very least, you will get to hear some great stories. Don't forget to record the conversations! <_tip number="6"> Example of a Family Tree: To see an example of what a family looks like in GRAMPS, check Help > Open example database. You will then be viewing the elaborate Smith family database, which includes 42 individuals and 15 families, with fairly complete data about many of the individuals. <_tip number="7"> Filtering People: In the People View, you can 'filter' individuals based on many criteria. Go to the Filter (just to the right of the People icon) and choose one of the dozen different presets. For example, all adopted people in the family tree can be located. People without a birth date mentioned can also be filtered. To get the results click Apply. If the filter controls are not visible, enable them by choosing View > Filter. <_tip number="8"> Inverted Filtering: Filters can easily be reversed by using the 'invert' option. For instance, by inverting the 'People with children' filter you can select all people without children. <_tip number="9"> Locating People: By default, each surname in the People View is listed only once. By clicking on the arrow to the left of a name, the list will expand to show all individuals with that last name. <_tip number="10"> The Family View: The Family View is used to display a typical family unit---the parents, spouses and children of an individual. <_tip number="11"> Shifting a Family View: Changing the Active Person in the Family View is easy. A spouse can be made the Active Person by clicking the button just to the right of the Active Person. A father can be made the Active Person by clicking on the arrow to the right of their name. A child can be made the Active Person by selecting them from the Children list and then clicking the arrow button to the right of the Children. <_tip number="12"> Who Was Born When: The 'Compare individual events' tool allows you to compare data of all (or some of) the individuals in your database. This is useful, say, if you wish to list the birth dates of everyone in your database. <_tip number="13"> GRAMPS comes with a rich set of tools. These allows you to undertake operations such as checking database for errors and consistency, as well as research and analysis tools such as event comparison, finding duplicate people, interactive descendant browser, and others. All tools can be accessed through the Tools menu. <_tip number="14"> Calculating Relationships: This tool, under Tools > Utilities > Relationship calculator allows you to check if someone else in the family is related (by blood, not marriage) to you. Precise relationships as well as the common ancestors are reported. <_tip number="15"> SoundEx can help with family research: SoundEx solves a long standing problem in genealogy---how to handle spelling variations. The SoundEx utility takes a surname and generates a simplified form that is equivalent for similar sounding names. Knowing the SoundEx Code for a surname is very helpful for researching Census Data files (microfiche) at a library or other research facility. To get the SoundEx codes for surnames in your database, go to Tools > Utilities > Generate SoundEx codes. <_tip number="16"> Setting Your Preferences: Not happy with some default behavior of GRAMPS? Edit > Preferences lets you to modify a number of settings, allowing you to tailor GRAMPS to your needs. <_tip number="17"> GRAMPS Reports: GRAMPS offers a wide variety of reports. The Text Reports are particularly useful if you want to send the results of your family tree to members of the family via email. <_tip number="18"> Starting a New Family Tree: A good way to start a new family tree is to enter all the members of the family into the database (use Edit > Add or click on the Add button under the People menu). Then go to the Family View and create relationships between people. Then go about tracing the relationships among them all under the Family menu. <_tip number="19"> Unsure what a button does? Simply hold the mouse over a button and a tooltip will appear. <_tip number="20"> Unsure of a Date? If you're unsure about the date an event occurred (for example birth or death), GRAMPS allows you to enter a wide range of date formats based on a guess or an estimate. For instance, "about 1908" is a valid entry for a birth date in GRAMPS. See section 3.7.2.2 of the GRAMPS manual for a complete description of date entry options. <_tip number="21"> Duplicate Entries: Tools > Database Processing > Find possible duplicate people allows you to located (and merge) entries of the same person entered more than once in the database. <_tip number="22"> The 'merge' function allows you to combine separately listed people into one. This is very useful for combining two databases with overlapping people, or combining erroneously entered differing names for one individual. <_tip number="23"> To easily merge two people, select them both (a second person can be selected by holding the Control key while clicking) and clicking on Edit > Fast Merge. <_tip number="24"> GRAMPS maintains a list of previous Active People. You can move forward and backward through the list using Go > Forward and Go > Back. <_tip number="25"> Tired of having to take your hand off the keyboard to use the mouse? Many functions in GRAMPS have keyboard shortcuts. If one exists for a function it is displayed on the right side of the menu. <_tip number="26"> Don't forget to read the GRAMPS manual, Help > User Manual. The developers have worked hard to make most operations intuitive but the manual is full of information that will make your time spent on genealogy more productive. <_tip number="27"> Adding Children: To add children in GRAMPS make either of the parents the Active Person then switch to the Family View. If the child is already in the database, click on the third button down to the right of the Children list. If the person is not already in the database, click on the second button down to the right of the Children list. After the child's information is entered they will automatically be listed as a child of the Active Person. <_tip number="28"> Editing The Relationship of a Child: Not all children are the related by birth to their parents. You can edit the relationship of a child to each parent by selecting the child, right-clicking, and choosing "Edit the child parent relationship". Relationships can be any of Birth, Adopted, Stepchild, Sponsored, Foster, or Unknown. <_tip number="29"> Show All Checkbutton: When adding a spouse or child, the list of people shown is filtered to display only people who could realistically fit the role (based on dates in the database). In case GRAMPS is wrong in making this choice, you can override that filter by checking the "Show All" checkbutton. <_tip number="30"> GRAMPS Manual: The GRAMPS manual is quite elaborate and well written. It includes details on keybindings and includes some useful tips that will help you in your genealogy work. Check it out. <_tip number="31"> Improving GRAMPS: Users are encouraged to request enhancements to GRAMPS. Requesting an enhancement can be done either through the gramps-users or gramps-devel mailing lists, or by creating a Request for Enhancement (RFE) at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=25770&atid=385140 Filing an RFE is preferred. <_tip number="32"> GRAMPS Mailing Lists: Want answers to your queries about GRAMPS? Check out the gramps-users list. Many people are on the list, so you're likely to get an answer quickly. If you have questions related to the development of GRAMPS, try gramps-devel. Information on both mailing lists can be found at lists.sf.net. <_tip number="33"> Contributing to GRAMPS: Want to help with GRAMPS but can't program? Not a problem. A project as large as GRAMPS requires people with a wide variety of skills. Contributions can vary from writing documentation to testing development versions to helping with the web site. Start by subscribing to the gramps developers mailing list, gramps-devel and introducing yourself. Subscription information can be found at lists.sf.net. <_tip number="34"> GRAMPS is the Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Program System. It is a full-featured genealogy program letting you store, edit, and research genealogical data. Gramps database back end is so robust that some users are managing genealogies containing hundreds of thousands of people. <_tip number="35"> Different Views: There are six different views for navigating your family: People, Family, Pedigree, Sources, Places, Media. Each helps you to achieve one or more specific tasks. <_tip number="36"> Bookmarking Individuals: The Bookmark menu at the top of the window is a convenient place to store the names of frequently used individuals. Clicking on a bookmarked individual will make that person the Active Person. To create a bookmark for a person, make them the Active Person, right click on their name and click on 'add bookmark'. <_tip number="37"> Incorrect Dates: Everyone occasionally enters dates with a nonvalid format. Incorrect date formats will show up with the red button next to the date. Green means okay, and amber signifies acceptable. The Date Selection dialog can be invoked by clicking on the colored button. <_tip number="38"> Listing Events: Events in the life of any individual may be added to the database via the Person > Edit Person > Events option. This space can be used to include a wide range of options ranging from adoptions, to baptisms (and other religious ceremonies), burials, causes of death, Census listings, degrees earned, elections, emigration, military service, nobility titles, occupations, ordination, property, religion, retirement, wills, etc. <_tip number="39"> Changing The Preferred Name: It is easy to manage people with several names in GRAMPS. Make the person the Active Person, doubleclick on the record, and select the Names tab. Different types of names can be added. For example, Married Name, Birth Name, etc. Selecting a preferred name is just a matter of right-clicking on the name and choosing the only item in the menu. <_tip number="40"> The Pedigree View displays a traditional pedigree chart. Hold the mouse over an individual to see more information about them or right click on an individual to view a menu to quickly access their spouses, siblings, children, or parents. <_tip number="41"> The Sources View shows a list of all sources in a single window. Double-click on each to edit, add notes, and to see which individuals reference the source. <_tip number="42"> The Places View shows a list of all places in the database. The list can be sorted by a number of different criteria, such as City, County or State. <_tip number="43"> The Media View shows a list of all media entered in the database. These can be graphic images, videos, sound clips, spreadsheets, documents, and more. <_tip number="44"> Filters allow you to limit the people seen in the People View. In addition to the many preset filters, Custom Filters can be created that allow you to create filters limited only by your imagination. Custom filters can be created from Tools > Utilities > Custom Filter Editor. <_tip number="45"> GRAMPS allows you to import from, and export to, GEDCOM format. There is extensive support for the industry standard GEDCOM version 5.5, so you can exchange GRAMPS information to and from users of most other genealogy programs. <_tip number="46"> You can convert your data into a GRAMPS package, which is a compressed file containing your family tree data and includes all other files used by the database, such as images. This file is completely portable so is useful for backups or sharing with other GRAMPS users. This format has advantages over GEDCOM in that no information is ever lost in exporting and importing. <_tip number="47"> Make your data portable --- your family tree data and media can be exported directly to the GNOME file manager (Nautilus), for burning onto a CD. <_tip number="48"> GRAMPS can export data to the Web Family Tree (WFT) format. This format allows a family tree to be displayed online using a single file, instead of many html files. <_tip number="49"> You can easily export your family tree to a web page. Select the entire database, family lines or selected individuals to a collection of web pages ready for upload to the World Wide Web. <_tip number="50"> The best way to report a bug in GRAMPS is to use the GRAMPS Bug Tracker at Sourceforge, http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=25770&atid=385137 <_tip number="51"> The GRAMPS homepage is at http://gramps-project.org/ <_tip number="52"> GRAMPS has some unique features, including the ability to input any piece of information directly into GRAMPS. All data in the data base can be rearranged/manipulated to assist the user in doing research, analysis and correlation with the potential of filling relationship gaps. <_tip number="53"> GRAMPS helps you to keep personal information secure by allowing you to mark information as private. Data marked as private can be excluded from reports and data exports. <_tip number="54"> Be accurate when recording genealogical information. Don't make assumptions while recording primary information; write it exactly as you see it. Use bracketed comments to indicate your additions, deletions or comments. Use of the Latin 'sic' is recommended to confirm the accurate transcription of what appears to be an error in a source. <_tip number="55"> You can link any electronic media (including non-text information) and other file types to your GRAMPS family tree. <_tip number="56"> GRAMPS allows you to generate a number of reports (both text and graphical) based on your genealogical information. There is great flexibility in selecting what people are included in the reports as well as the output format (html, pdf, OpenOffice, RTF, AbiWord, KWord, LaTeX and plain text). Experiment with the reports under the Reports menu to get an idea of how powerful GRAMPS is. <_tip number="57"> Custom reports can be created by advanced users under the "plugin" system. More information on custom reports can be found at http://developers.gramps-project.org <_tip number="58"> The Book report, Reports > Books > Book Report, allows users to collect a variety of reports into a single document. This single report is easier to distribute than multiple reports, especially when printed. <_tip number="59"> Interested in getting notified when a new version of GRAMPS is released? Join the gramps-announce mailing list at http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-announce <_tip number="60"> Good genealogy tip: Information collected about your family is only as good as the source it came from. Take time and trouble to record all the details of where the information came from. Whenever possible get a copy of original documents. <_tip number="61"> Go from what you know to what you do not. Always record everything that is known before making conjecture. Often the facts at hand suggest plenty of direction for more research. Don't waste time looking through thousands of records hoping for a trail when you have other unexplored leads. <_tip number="62"> Genealogy isn't only about dates and names. It is about people. Be descriptive. Include the why of how things happened, and how descendants might have been shaped by the events they went through. Narratives go a long way in making your family history come alive. <_tip number="63"> GRAMPS has been translated to 15 languages. If GRAMPS supports your language and it is not being displayed, set the default language on your machine and restart GRAMPS. <_tip number="64"> GRAMPS has been designed so that new translations can easily be added with little development effort. If you are interested in participating please email gramps-devel@lists.sf.net <_tip number="65"> Relationship calculators in GRAMPS are available in ten languages. <_tip number="66"> GRAMPS offers full Unicode support. Characters for all languages are properly displayed. <_tip number="67"> Anyone can be chosen as the 'home person' in GRAMPS. Use Edit -> Set Home Person. The home person is the person who is selected when the database is opened or when the home button is pressed. <_tip number="68"> Multiple names can be specified for individuals. Examples are birth name, marriage name or aliases. <_tip number="69"> An alternate name can be selected as a person's preferred name by selecting the desired name in the person's name list, bringing up the context menu by clicking the right mouse button, and selecting from the menu. <_tip number="70"> GRAMPS is written in a computer language called Python using the GTK and GNOME libraries for the graphical interface. GRAMPS is supported on any computer system where these programs have been ported. <_tip number="71"> The Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) development model means GRAMPS can be extended by any programmer since all of the source code is freely available under its license. <_tip number="72"> GRAMPS is freely distributable under the General Public License, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL <_tip number="73"> GRAMPS works even when using KDE, as long as the required GNOME libraries are installed. <_tip number="74"> To run GRAMPS, you need to have GNOME installed. But you do not need to be running the GNOME desktop. <_tip number="75"> GRAMPS makes every effort to maintain compatibility with GEDCOM, the general standard of recording genealogical information. Filters exist that make importing and exporting GEDCOM files trivial.