We control the horozontal, they control the vertical

March 25, 2009 4:17 PM

GenealogyFilter: Looking for an application that represents lifespans down the vertical axis and allows durational events to span across the horizontal axis. And imports GEDCOM. Seen some old programs, and they look pretty Windows 3.0-y... Anything new under the sun? Web 2.0 stuff? I'm already using geni.com--I'd like to stretch the rectangles and slice with horizontal bars.

A rainy Friday night, a bottle of Scotch, a random website asking me to type in some dates and WHAMO! nearly 3,000 names later (!) I've become the family genealogist. Even a trip to an abandoned family cemetery out of town last weekend...

Not real concerned with finding that I too am related to Charlemangne, or Ghandi, or Jesus or whatever, just kind of a fun puzzle. Especially since the economy has more or less turned work into old school Detention Hall.

I've got enough names now that I'm starting to see where families, geographies, and politics overlap. Interested to put in common events (1776, epidemics, wars, etc) to appreciate the bigger picture of these forgotten lives.

And, yes, I'm still enjoyng the Scotch...

posted by TigerMoth to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

After a similar Friday night, I've been rather impressed with PhpGedView. It imports GEDCOM, and I know it has some sort of event listing. (It's also, you know, web 2.0 ish)
posted by niles at 4:56 PM on March 25, 2009 [1 favorite]

GenealogyJ is free software and has views that do each of the individual things you're talking about, although I'm not sure how to mark events (e.g. the 4th of July 1776) that aren't related to any individual person.
posted by shii at 5:40 PM on March 25, 2009