Great to see more people explore the power of network graphs — something I’ve been advocating for since the early Gramps 5 era, even though only a few on the mailing list or here on Discourse have considered it useful.
As a hint: *You can create similar network graphs in Cytoscape, Gephi, Tulip and yEd, just to mention a few. And if you prefer Python‑based workflows, you can combine networkx or igraph with frontends such as PyVis, ipycytoscape, Dash‑Cytoscape, Plotly, Bokeh or Graphistry — or even D3.js if you want the full flexibility of a modern JavaScript visualization engine.*
This can also be integrated into a Gramplet with relatively little effort. There is already at least one Gramplet that uses D3.js, and Gramps itself relies on Graphviz for its built‑in relationship graphs. So the ecosystem is already halfway there, and nothing prevents new Gramplets from using networkx, igraph or any modern graph frontend.
I actually made my own XML converter based on Nick’s GEXF export, with the help of AI. It was fairly easy to do, even though I had to go through some trial and error before it became usable. It’s still not complete — I still need to handle things like links inside Notes and the Association feature in Gramps — but the core works.
This type of network graphs was actually one of the main reasons why I started to use Foam for VSC and Obsidian (Under here is a small part of one of my research graphs showing links between newspapers, ships, events, ports and seamen).
Another tip: this can now be done quite easily with @banisterious “Charted Roots” plugin for Obsidian, which brings proper genealogical charts, maps, and relationship visualizations directly into Obsidian. Genealogy research in Obsidian for those who want to try - #10 by StoltHD
And for someone who actually knows how to code and create Gramplets, I believe it would be quite straightforward to build a Gramplet with multiple algorithms, filters and other tools for analytical work and research — and even add visual effects for such a graph, since modern graph engines make that almost trivial.
Note: This text was drafted in Norwegian and translated and refined with the assistance of Microsoft Copilot. The final content has been reviewed and approved by the author.
