[Gramps-users] GRAMPS Places usage question

[John Bissett]

All:

I am just starting with GRAMPS. I have looked at the "places" and
"dates" documentation but I can't get GRAMPS to do what I want. I would
be very grateful if someone could help me.

For example take the town of St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. From 1810 to
1841 it was St, Thomas, Middlesex, Upper Canada. From 1841 to 1851 it
was St. Thomas, Middlesex, Canada West, United Province of Canada.
From 1851 to 1867 it was St. Thomas, Elgin, Canada West, United
Province of Canada. And from 1867 it was St. Thomas, Elgin, Ontario, Canada.

This is because in 1841 the provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada
merged to form the United Province of Canada. Upper Canada became known
as Canada West. Lower Canada became Canada East. In 1851 a part of
Middlesex county was taken to form Elgin county. Finally in 1867 the
United Province of Canada split into Ontario and Quebec which joined
with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to form the Dominion of Canada.

I tried creating "places" records for the various provincial, region,
county and town names with their associated dates. I then used (in some
cases) multiple "enclosed by" to reflect all the historical relationships.

When I put "St. Thomas" in my father's birth record and his birth date
of June 7, 1920, I expected it to be labelled as "St. Thomas, Elgin,
Ontario, Canada.

Instead I am getting "St. Thomas, Middlesex, ?, ?.

Is there a way to get GRAMPS to generate historically correct full names
for villages, towns, cities and other "enclosed" places based on event date?

[Nick Hall]

Post by John Bissett
When I put "St. Thomas" in my father's birth record and his birth
date of June 7, 1920, I expected it to be labelled as "St. Thomas,
Elgin, Ontario, Canada.
Instead I am getting "St. Thomas, Middlesex, ?, ?.
Is there a way to get GRAMPS to generate historically correct full
names for villages, towns, cities and other "enclosed" places based on
event date?

Put the date ranges on the links rather than the place names.

Nick.

[Doug]

I am just starting with GRAMPS. I have looked at the
"places" and "dates" documentation but I can't get GRAMPS
to do what I want. I would be very grateful if someone
could help me.
For example take the town of St. Thomas, Ontario,
Canada. From 1810 to 1841 it was St, Thomas, Middlesex,
Upper Canada.  From 1841 to 1851 it was St. Thomas,Â
Middlesex, Canada West, United Province of Canada. From
1851 to 1867 it was St. Thomas, Elgin, Canada West,
United Province of Canada. And from 1867 it was St.
Thomas, Elgin, Ontario, Canada.
This is because in 1841 the provinces of Upper Canada
and Lower Canada merged to form the United Province of
Canada. Upper Canada became known as Canada West. Lower
Canada became Canada East. In 1851 a part of Middlesex
county was taken to form Elgin county.  Finally in
1867 the United Province of Canada split into Ontario and
Quebec which joined with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to
form the Dominion of Canada.
I tried creating "places" records for the various
provincial, region, county and town names with their
associated dates. I then used (in some cases) multiple
"enclosed by" to reflect all the historical relationships.Â
When I put "St. Thomas" in my father's birth record and
his birth date of June 7, 1920, I expected it to be
labelled as "St. Thomas, Elgin, Ontario, Canada.
Instead I am getting "St. Thomas, Middlesex, ?, ?.
Is there a way to get GRAMPS to generate historically
correct full names for villages, towns, cities and other
"enclosed" places based on event date?

Hi John,

I'm attaching a small gramps file ("canadatrial.gramps")
with what I think is what you're asking for:
(1) Create a new (empty) family tree with any name that
suits you
(2) Family Trees=>Import - select 'canadatrial.gramps' from
wherever you've left it. Import.
(3) You should see that the place of your father's dob is
correctly shown.
(4) I've also added a bogus date of death 100 years earlier
to show that the place then is automatically entered
correctly for that date.

I suggest you play around with a *copy* of the file to see
the effect of altering or removing dates on the place tree.

Some general comments:
Unfortunately gramps has no way of indicating a change of
place category with time: St. Thomas settlement 1810->
village 1852-> town 1861->city 1881. I've left it as
settlement, even though it's obviously a nonsense.

Most of the time, setting up your place tree is
straightforward; but once it gets a bit complicated you can
do with all the aids gramps offers. Your place tree is a
case in point.
So,
(a) enable automatic place title generation
(Edit=>Preferences=>Display=> Enable automatic place title
generation)
(b) have the "enclosed by" and "enclosing" gramplets open in
the side panel, large enough to show the date columns
(c) alternate between Places List view and Place Tree view
frequently for checking.

Errors show up in 3 ways:

A question mark in the place title, e.g. "St. Thomas,
Middlesex, ?, ?"

A truncated place title, eg. "Canada West", when the
Enclosed by field shows it to be enclosed by United Province
of Canada which is itself enclosed by Canada.
That is the title should be "Canada West, United Province of
Canada, Canada".
The problem here is Canada West encl. by United Province of
Canada (1841-1867), encl. by Canada (1841-1867); but Canada
West has had no dates set on its validity. Inserting these
(Canada West [1841-1867]) corrects the title.

A question mark in the place field of an event such as a
birth. If there are no errors of the first two kinds this
means a mistake in entering the date or place of the event.

I hope this helps; let me know how you get on.

Regards,
Doug

[m***@riseup.net]

Hello:

Has anyone ever thought of setting up a forum for GRAMPS users? It would
be much easier to have one available rather than subscribing to this
list. Would make it much easier to find old answers for questions etc
...

I don't know what is involved well but readymade programs are supposed
to make running one extremely simple. I doubt it is more trouble than
the list and a lot more convenient.

Best,

Mihail

[Craig Treleaven]

Post by m***@riseup.net
Has anyone ever thought of setting up a forum for GRAMPS users? It would
be much easier to have one available rather than subscribing to this
list. Would make it much easier to find old answers for questions etc
...
I don't know what is involved well but readymade programs are supposed
to make running one extremely simple. I doubt it is more trouble than
the list and a lot more convenient.

Apparently there was a forum in the 2005-2006 time frame but it was closed due to excessive spam traffic:

http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=1807095&query=forum+attack&days=0

Should the project try again? Depends who you ask. Most people who are now on the mailing list are comfortable with mailings lists…for obvious reasons. So, if you ask there, there likely won’t be a lot of support.

OTOH, I think new users—the ones most likely to need support—would be much more comfortable with an online forum. My kids, 19 and 21, barely ever use email and then only grudgingly. Greybeards can lecture all they want but that’s not going to change how things are.

To me, the one killer feature of a forum is the easy ability to embed a picture inline. If a user is having trouble with some feature of Gramps, an annotated screen shot with the overlooked widget circled is more valuable than a thousand words trying to unambiguously describe the thing.

Does that make a forum a no-brainer? Well, no. It takes time and skill to set up a forum. It takes time and effort to adminster the forum and keep the spammers out. It may also require some money for bandwidth. All it takes is somebody motivated-enough to come up with these resources and then there will be a Gramps forum. Since we don’t have one, no one apparently feels so motivated. But it is a community-driven project—maybe the OP wants to do it?

Craig

[Ron Johnson]

On 06/25/2017 10:01 AM, Craig Treleaven wrote:
[snip]

Post by Craig Treleaven
To me, the one killer feature of a forum is the easy ability to embed a picture inline. If a user is having trouble with some feature of Gramps, an annotated screen shot with the overlooked widget circled is more valuable than a thousand words trying to unambiguously describe the thing.
Does that make a forum a no-brainer? Well, no. It takes time and skill to set up a forum. It takes time and effort to adminster the forum and keep the spammers out. It may also require some money for bandwidth. All it takes is somebody motivated-enough to come up with these resources and then there will be a Gramps forum. Since we don’t have one, no one apparently feels so motivated. But it is a community-driven project—maybe the OP wants to do it?

And the gramps people do *zero* work maintaining the mailing list, since
it's all handled by sourceforge.

[Doug]

Post by Ron Johnson
[snip]

Post by Craig Treleaven
To me, the one killer feature of a forum is the easy
ability to embed a picture inline. If a user is having
trouble with some feature of Gramps, an annotated screen
shot with the overlooked widget circled is more valuable
than a thousand words trying to unambiguously describe
the thing.
Does that make a forum a no-brainer? Well, no. It takes
time and skill to set up a forum. It takes time and
effort to adminster the forum and keep the spammers out.
It may also require some money for bandwidth. All it
takes is somebody motivated-enough to come up with these
resources and then there will be a Gramps forum. Since
we don’t have one, no one apparently feels so
motivated. But it is a community-driven project—maybe
the OP wants to do it?

And the gramps people do *zero* work maintaining the
mailing list, since it's all handled by sourceforge

My 2 cents worth: for me, the killer feature of the forums I
belonged to was that I rarely got an answer to a problem I
posted - too few people saw it in a sub-forum, I imagine,
whereas pretty well everybody sees the whole mailing list;
and somebody, maybe a person not particularly interested,
may nevertheless know of a solution.

Doug

[Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI]

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 17:42:50 +0100

Post by Doug
for me, the killer feature of the forums I
belonged to was that I rarely got an answer to a problem I
posted - too few people saw it in a sub-forum, I imagine,
whereas pretty well everybody sees the whole mailing list;
and somebody, maybe a person not particularly interested,
may nevertheless know of a solution.

Another advantage of a list is that I can easily keep locally postings of immediate, of possible future, interest instead of having to search through a forum on the day I need info I remember seeing some time ago.

Cheers,

Ron.

[Enno Borgsteede]

Post by Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI
Another advantage of a list is that I can easily keep locally postings
of immediate, of possible future, interest instead of having to search
through a forum on the day I need info I remember seeing some time ago.

Indeed, and another issue is that when people set up a forum site, they
often create dozens of separate message areas, which makes posting and
searching even worse.

The Gramps lists are simple. There is one for users, one for developers,
and they are archived on SourceForge and Nabble, so they can be searched
too.

And the most important for me: They are mailing lists, so I can read
them together with all the other things that I am interested in using
one single inbox, and for me that is a huge time saver. Hopping from
forum site to forum site is something that I simply don't have the time
for, so for me it's this, or nothing, period.

cheers,

Enno

[Craig Treleaven]

Post by Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI
Another advantage of a list is that I can easily keep locally postings of immediate, of possible future, interest instead of having to search through a forum on the day I need info I remember seeing some time ago.

Indeed, and another issue is that when people set up a forum site, they often create dozens of separate message areas, which makes posting and searching even worse.

Most forum software out there has a one-click control to show the new posts (regardless of sub-forum) since your last visit. Looks almost like unread email that has been filtered into a mailbox.

The Gramps lists are simple. There is one for users, one for developers, and they are archived on SourceForge and Nabble, so they can be searched too.

Searching is generall easier and more flexible on a forum compared a mailing list since there is normally a button right in front of your nose. Better, you can usually choose whether to search a topic, the sub-forum or the entire board.

And the most important for me: They are mailing lists, so I can read them together with all the other things that I am interested in using one single inbox, and for me that is a huge time saver. Hopping from forum site to forum site is something that I simply don't have the time for, so for me it's this, or nothing, period.

The “workflow” for forums is just a little different from that of participating in a mailing list. (Bookmarks are your friend!) After learning a bit, anyone can use either avenue very effectively. However, I would hazzard a guess that more new users coming to Gramps have experience with forums than mailing lists. We’re asking (insisting?) that those people also learn how to deal with a foreign-to-them animal called a mailing list.

Other minor benefits of a forum:

- can have “pinned” threads that answer frequently asked questions
- can show ‘trending topics’: lots of activity
- can show questions asked that have received no answer yet
- can show the posting history of the thread creator so you have some idea what their experience level is when framing a response.
- can show up/down voting on responses rather than a bunch of “me too” replies
- can show the number of views on posting so you know your question is at least being seen
etc

I follow a number of mailing lists and a number of forums on a daily basis. Either one lets interested people trade information. I’m involved with the MythTV project and when a forum was proposed there was strong resistance from a “mailing-list-or-die” group. Turns out the mailing list is going strong AND the forum is doing fine. In fact, there isn’t much duplication between the two. Once in a while somebody gets pointed to a forum thread or list archive if their question has already been answered. Not a big deal.

Craig

[Brad Rogers]

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 16:05:41 -0400
Craig Treleaven <***@cogeco.ca> wrote:

Hello Craig,

The “workflow” for forums is just a little different from that of
participating in a mailing list.

Everything you say can be done in forums can be done in an MUA.
*Without* the need of having to visit a web site and log in. Multiply
that by the 150 or more ML's I'm subbed to.........

Forums are only better than MLs when the number of forums joined is
less than one.

[Bret Busby]

Post by Brad Rogers
On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 16:05:41 -0400
Hello Craig,

Post by Craig Treleaven
The “workflow” for forums is just a little different from that of
participating in a mailing list.

Everything you say can be done in forums can be done in an MUA.
*Without* the need of having to visit a web site and log in. Multiply
that by the 150 or more ML's I'm subbed to.........

And, for me, somewhere over 200, I think, which is where hundreds of
filters, some with hundreds of filter field values, come in useful.
pine/alpine is quite powerful for that.

Post by Brad Rogers
Forums are only better than MLs when the number of forums joined is
less than one.

I like that. Is that copyrighted (or, should that be "copyritten?)?

:)
--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia

..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
A Trilogy In Four Parts",
written by Douglas Adams,
published by Pan Books, 1992

....................................................

[Brad Rogers]

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 02:25:15 +0800
Bret Busby <***@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Bret,

Post by Bret Busby

Post by Brad Rogers
Forums are only better than MLs when the number of forums joined is
less than one.

I like that. Is that copyrighted (or, should that be "copyritten?)?

{smiley noted}

I think it's "Is that copyright?" In any case, no. Feel free to
(ab)use it to your heart's content.

[Ron Johnson]

Post by m***@riseup.net
Has anyone ever thought of setting up a forum for GRAMPS users?

No.

Post by m***@riseup.net
It would be much easier to have one available rather than subscribing to this
list.

Eh?

Post by m***@riseup.net
Would make it much easier to find old answers for questions etc

Google has fully indexed the list archives.

[Doug]

Post by Ron Johnson

Post by m***@riseup.net
Has anyone ever thought of setting up a forum for GRAMPS
users?

No.

Post by m***@riseup.net
It would be much easier to have one available rather
than subscribing to this
list.

Eh?

Post by m***@riseup.net
Would make it much easier to find old answers for
questions etc

Google has fully indexed the list archives

I think it was suggested some years ago and generally agreed
to be a bad idea, judging by people's experience of forums
elsewhere.

Doug

[Paul Franklin]

Post by Doug
I think it was suggested some years ago and generally agreed
to be a bad idea, judging by people's experience of forums
elsewhere.

That's what I recall also, vaguely.

As has been said, the mailing-list people here generally are
comfortable with the mailing list way of doing things.

It's also true that since SourceForge does the mechanics,
that its administration is at a minimal level (although I am
not one who maintains it and am not speaking officially).

But while I don't use them at all, to the best of my knowledge
other forums do exist, at other web sites, both for genealogy
in general and gramps in particular. So I would suppose that
any user who prefers that method of communication can
find such things, and then use them there.

[Ron Johnson]

On 06/25/2017 11:49 AM, Paul Franklin wrote:
[snip]

Post by Paul Franklin
But while I don't use them at all, to the best of my knowledge
other forums do exist, at other web sites, both for genealogy
in general*and gramps in particular*.

Really?

[Philip Weiss]

There's a Gramps forum at Ancestry. I'm the nominal moderator there.

https://www.ancestry.com/boards/topics.software.gramps/mb.ashx

Post by Ron Johnson
[snip]
But while I don't use them at all, to the best of my knowledge
other forums do exist, at other web sites, both for genealogy
in general *and gramps in particular*.
Really?
--
World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
_______________________________________________
Gramps-users mailing list
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users
https://gramps-project.org

[Paul Franklin]

Post by Ron Johnson
[snip]

Post by Paul Franklin
But while I don't use them at all, to the best of my knowledge
other forums do exist, at other web sites, both for genealogy
in general and gramps in particular.

Really?

I wouldn't have said it if I didn't think it was true.

[Peter (chamdo4ever)]

Post by Ron Johnson
[snip]
But while I don't use them at all, to the best of my knowledge
other forums do exist, at other web sites, both for genealogy
in general and gramps in particular.
Really?

Just like my compatriots Ron and Enno, I'm all for the mailing list,
but there does exist a Gramps subreddit which I'm subscribed to:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gramps/

But make no mistake, the mailing list is the definitive place to
discuss Gramps and Gramps related issues and I think it's the best
option. I intensely dislike the idea of a forum instead.

Peter

[Paul Franklin]

Post by Peter (chamdo4ever)
https://www.reddit.com/r/gramps/

Yes, and the Reddit one also points to ones on Twitter,
Facebook, and Google+ (but I've never gone to any of them).

[Paul Franklin]

I hope this thread doesn't degenerate into one where people
who favor one over the other keep on listing the reasons they
like one or the other.

Surely the world has seen enough "discussions" like that?

We all know you like what you like. That's fine.

But trying to convince people of your preference usually fails.

And just wastes bandwidth for the rest of us. 8-)

Thanks.

[Ron Johnson]

On 06/25/2017 02:45 PM, Peter (chamdo4ever) wrote:
[snip]

Post by Peter (chamdo4ever)
Just like my compatriots Ron and Enno, I'm all for the mailing list,
https://www.reddit.com/r/gramps/

Didn't know that, either.

[John Bissett]

Doug:

Thanks for your reply with the sample database. Dave Scheipers already
helped me with this and your database reinforced what he told me. This
may not be clear from the digest as one of my notes to Dave was
rejected as too large. I put in too many screen prints. I can see that
a DB export may have been smaller. Or I could have put the screen
prints in a file in dropbox and sent a link. I appreciate your help.

Post by Doug

I am just starting with GRAMPS. I have looked at the "places" and
"dates" documentation but I can't get GRAMPS to do what I want. I
would be very grateful if someone could help me.
For example take the town of St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. From
1810 to 1841 it was St, Thomas, Middlesex, Upper Canada.  FromÂ
1841 to 1851 it was St. Thomas, Middlesex, Canada West, United
Province of Canada. From 1851 to 1867 it was St. Thomas, Elgin,
Canada West, United Province of Canada. And from 1867 it was St.
Thomas, Elgin, Ontario, Canada.
This is because in 1841 the provinces of Upper Canada and Lower
Canada merged to form the United Province of Canada. Upper Canada
became known as Canada West. Lower Canada became Canada East. In
1851 a part of Middlesex county was taken to form Elgin county. Â
Finally in 1867 the United Province of Canada split into Ontario and
Quebec which joined with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to form the
Dominion of Canada.
I tried creating "places" records for the various provincial, region,
county and town names with their associated dates. I then used (in
some cases) multiple "enclosed by" to reflect all the historical
relationships.Â
When I put "St. Thomas" in my father's birth record and his birth
date of June 7, 1920, I expected it to be labelled as "St. Thomas,
Elgin, Ontario, Canada.
Instead I am getting "St. Thomas, Middlesex, ?, ?.
Is there a way to get GRAMPS to generate historically correct full
names for villages, towns, cities and other "enclosed" places based
on event date?

Hi John,
I'm attaching a small gramps file ("canadatrial.gramps") with what I
(1) Create a new (empty) family tree with any name that suits you
(2) Family Trees=>Import - select 'canadatrial.gramps' from wherever
you've left it. Import.
(3) You should see that the place of your father's dob is correctly shown.
(4) I've also added a bogus date of death 100 years earlier to show
that the place then is automatically entered correctly for that date.
I suggest you play around with a *copy* of the file to see the effect
of altering or removing dates on the place tree.
Unfortunately gramps has no way of indicating a change of place
category with time: St. Thomas settlement 1810-> village 1852-> town
1861->city 1881. I've left it as settlement, even though it's
obviously a nonsense.
Most of the time, setting up your place tree is straightforward; but
once it gets a bit complicated you can do with all the aids gramps
offers. Your place tree is a case in point.
So,
(a) enable automatic place title generation
(Edit=>Preferences=>Display=> Enable automatic place title generation)
(b) have the "enclosed by" and "enclosing" gramplets open in the side
panel, large enough to show the date columns
(c) alternate between Places List view and Place Tree view frequently
for checking.
A question mark in the place title, e.g. "St. Thomas, Middlesex, ?, ?"
A truncated place title, eg. "Canada West", when the Enclosed by field
shows it to be enclosed by United Province of Canada which is itself
enclosed by Canada.
That is the title should be "Canada West, United Province of Canada,
Canada".
The problem here is Canada West encl. by United Province of Canada
(1841-1867), encl. by Canada (1841-1867); but Canada West has had no
dates set on its validity. Inserting these (Canada West [1841-1867])
corrects the title.
A question mark in the place field of an event such as a birth. If
there are no errors of the first two kinds this means a mistake in
entering the date or place of the event.
I hope this helps; let me know how you get on.
Regards,
Doug