Posted by matt@antinomia on January 14, 2007 at 1:11am
Hi ebrittweb, lonely group here? Just saying hi. My name is Matt and I've had thoughts about integrating genealogy features into Drupal, so when I found the group, I thought "hey, that seems neat." Apparently others weren't as interested. :) Anyhow, shoot me an email or post here and maybe some others will find us!
Comments
+1 to the Genealogy group
Hey,
Jason here. I have been working on familycurator.net for my kinfolk. It has been slow going on my part, but thus far, I have integrated TNG into Drupal 4.6. I manage my GedCom files in PAF and then post Online via TNG.
I am not a technologist, so I am saving up coins to pay someone to build a single sign-in API between TNG and Drupal 4.7 (which I like better than 4.6).
I plan on using taxonomy_access module to control access to differnt types of info, so members of one branch can...;for example: post the real story behind Aunt Edna's death without the entire familycurator community seeing it; much less the entire Web.
post the real story behind Aunt Edna's death
for example: post the real story behind Aunt Edna's death without the entire familycurator community seeing it; much less the entire Web.
Or for example document the fact that uncle James was a drunkard, and he died from liver desease. Of course uncle James' children would protest, such an entry. But his grandchildren might be less protective--they might actually prefer to know the real truth.
So I've often thought about how to create a genealogy site, where people could create time capsule entries, that would not be published until some date in the future, say 10, 15, even 50 years.
It would be a great way to pass honest and frank historical information through the generations, without offending present generation folks.
Another thought is to make entries about certain individuals that can only be read by certain others-- say immediate family. This way the true history of an individual can be preserved, but at the same time the dissemination can be guarded. Also, a 360 degree perspective of individuals can be documented. I.E. there are things that children don't know about parents, because parents don't want them to know. But the friends of the parents may know. For example Johnny is not your full brother. We adopted him when he was a baby. So the historical record can be preserved for future generations of the family, but guarded from present day generation.
Oral Histories: fank history v bias perspectives v spin
The time capsule idea is very interesting. Family secretes and conflicts are often never honestly spoken about for generations, but by then you have to wonder how fair, balanced and truthful the information becomes. Over time 'truth' becomes something unto its own and may or may not resemble what occurred. "Truthiness" if you will.
I like hearing and recording oral histories from my elder family members, but alway remember that AT BEST I am getting their perspective on events. Did grandma abandon her husband, or did she have the strength to leave an abusive situation? The grandson's view the former and the grand-daughter's hold the later to be the 'truth'. Does the story teller have an unconscious motive to spinning the story one way or the other? Was father mean or was just a single dad trying to raise 6 children who's mother had died? Was Uncle Bill gay or did he just never find the right woman?
In any case, the 'truthiness' of stories become the family history and lore. People's perspective, their stories, become their personal truth, and tell just as much about them as anything. That is valuable for younger generations to know. If Uncle Willie felt that he was abused, it impacted the parenting of his own children.
Relative user permissions rather than group permission to view content, hmm; that is a cool idea. Two generations within a direct linage can view Pappaw's content, but no one else. The TNG applications tracks linages and relationships. Currently, it controls access via permission to family branches. It also allows you to hide some information until you enter a death date. I wonder if you could leverage that application to control permissions in Drupal. TNG interfaces with Drupal as a plugin API. (I am not a technologist, so forgive me if I am using the wrong terms)
I wonder if CiviCRM could be used as a starting point?
I've used CiviCRM for volunteer databases in the past and one of the thoughts I had while using it was that this might make a good basis for genealogy data. It would need a genealogy reporting module built to run off the tables, but it may be set up already to collect data since you can define relationships between individuals in the database. This is from the CiviCRM website.
Like parent-child or husband-wife relationships?
http://civicrm.org/aboutcivicrm
Shrubs vs Trees
I have been looking at CiviCRM for another project. I can see the potential you are talking about, but in its current form it would not allow you to record multiple generations. It records family shrubs vs family trees. The data structure might need sig tweaking as well to meet the GedCom standards for importing and exporting to genealogy programs. I am happy using TNG to dynamically post my genealogy files. I have it working with Drupal 4.6 now, and will upgrade to 4.7 soon
I have thought about using CiviCRM with my genealogy project. Specifically, CiviMail, CiviContribute, and CiviEvent to better manage newsletters, reunions, donations, etc... I will be getting more experience with CiviCRM + Drupal 4.7 over the next month. If all goes well, I will use TNG + Drupal + CiviCRM to run my genealogy Site before the August family reunion.
Looking for the same thing
I'd be interested in a clone of your TNG + Drupal + CiviCRM project.
Genealogy integration into Drupal - what about phpGEDView?
Thom K,
Sorry "I've been away" and thanks for posting your inquiry here. I, too, have worked with CiviCRM and immediately thought how it might work well for genealogy. Since then, however, I've come across phpGEDView and decided it is a much better way to go. There is already a phpGEDView module that supports both Drupal 5.1 and 4.7 and there continues to be significant work on phpGEDView. In fact, last June apparently this was THE most active project on SourceForge!!
Erik Britt-Webb
drupal@britt-webb.net
Erik Britt-Webb
drupal@ebrittwebb.com
PhpGedView
I have tried PhpGedView, both as a component of Drupal and as a stand alone program. It works so well by itself, wrapping in in Drupal reduces its use. The Drupal theme takes screen real estate away from the PhpGedView so that you have to keep moving the window around to access the data.
You are far better off to use the advantages that Drupal has to offer in the management of the front end and standard backend processes, and create a new database and data entry processes, with appropriate standard reporting.
I have tried CiviCRM as well, great product but it is a flexible interface management system, not designed for an add/edit/delete database with specific reporting functions. This is effectively what genealogy software is.
I am happy to work with anyone to build the necessary set of modules. Is there a projsct such as this I can join, or can we start a new one. I am a data analyst so I already have a database strucure that can be used. Not too crash hot on PHP and the inner workings of Drupal but willing to learn.
Tony
auth module
Interesting comments. I am trying to use phpgedview with Drupal as well, but the phpgedview module is obsolete (I am using Drupal 6.x).
My main concern is to allow my users to use just one username/password. Since most of my users are in fact using a custom domain google apps account, I guess that in my case the best way would be to allow google apps auth for drupal and phpgedview somehow.
Use Oauth
Actually, Google apps auth is being deprecated as well. The better bet for distributed authentication is the OAuth module.
However, I'm not sure if this is what you want either. This would still require two accounts: one in phpGedView and one in Drupal, with the ability to share information back and forth. What you want is probably an updated phpGedView module. I just went looking for the old one and I can even find it. It use to be here.
Erik Britt-Webb
drupal@ebrittwebb.com
nice one
Oauth looks nice. Does it do Windows Live ID as well? Can we use multiple log-in options?
I don't mind having to use two user databases (i.e.: one for drupal and another phpgedview), particularly I think this would be the way to go since they are two separate applications, which stores different data. However, what I do want is for users to be able to log-in at phpgedview only through drupal. Here is an idea (not set in stone -- just food for thought):
www.example.com -> drupal site
www.example.com/genealogy -> phpgedview
Trying to visit /genealogy would redirect user to a drupal log-in block. Once loged user is redirected back to /genealogy
Why Drupal?
I don't understand why Drupal? Why not just run phpGedView by itself? If you want to integrate the two, then I would think you want to make them look like one application, not two. If you don't then why bother with Drupal at all?
Erik Britt-Webb
drupal@ebrittwebb.com
Personally, after several
Personally, after several years developing and theming web sites under Drupal, setting up a PGV site to do more than simply displaying a family tree in the standard PGV way feels limiting. If you want additional blocks or to take advantage of other modules and functionality that PGV does not already have, the idea of handling all that under Drupal is very compelling. The idea of marrying Drupal and PGV just seems natural to me.
We want single sign-on The
We want single sign-on
The drupal site will be a community for people to stay in touch, which will be heavily based on content syndicated from social sites. The phpdeview is just an additional application we want to use.
It would be great if we can make them all look alike. But the main objective is for people not to have to have to type username and passwords for two different sites.
Themes
I am looking for a theme to use for my genealogy site using the family tree module, any suggestions. I would like to includ on the site photos, records and a short bio etc onto the site.
thank you
Single Sign-On for Webtrees
I've been using phpGedView alongside Drupal for several years for a family genealogy website. Now it appears that the PGV development team has moved on to Webtrees http://webtrees.net I've looked at TNG as a possible replacement, but it's not open source, and I have no desire to spend resources there.
I would like to have SSO (single sign-on) between Drupal and Webtrees. I presume that this would require a Drupal module plus some modifications to Webtrees. Is anyone aware of any activity in this area?