How to format CSV to show hierarchy and import into gramps to make family tree

[agraham9966]

Hi all, I am using gramps AIO64-5.1.6-1 , windows 10.

I am new to gramps. Basically I have a very large family and want a way to have ensure my family tree stays as up to date as possible in the future. My idea so far is to have a google sheet that I can make a shared doc amongst my family members; as there are deaths, births etc. it can be updated easily in that regard. And then I can from time to time redownload that csv and import it into gramps to update the tree.

So what I am trying to determine is how to format a csv so that it can be ingested into gramps to generate the tree. What I tried so far is using the example.gramps file included in the install directory, and exported it as a csv just so I could inspect what it looks like. I am confused though because I don’t see from this csv how one could tell the lineages / hierarchies (i.e. who is married to who, who is a kid of who).
I guess my question is, is my idea plausible / possible with this software? How should I be appropriately formatting the csv so that we can share the doc and fill it in over time?

Thanks for anyone’s time in helping me - much appreciated-

p.s. These are the cols I see in my csv file but I dont see how any of them have any relational info?
’
Person Surname Given Call Suffix Prefix Title Gender Birth date Birth place Birth source Baptism date Baptism place Baptism source Death date Death place Death source Burial date Burial place Burial source Note’

Alex

[Patsyblefebre]

Have you seen the examples in the user manual that cover it?

Gramps 5.1 Wiki Manual - Manage Family Trees: CSV Import and Export

[ennoborg]

Hi Alex,

I don’t think that it is a good idea, because the approach makes it very hard to track and review changes. You can make a start by exporting a tree from Gramps to CSV and then let your relatives add data to that, on-line, but every one makes mistakes, and understanding how family relations are coded in CSV may also not be everyone’s thing. Another thing is that spreadsheets often mess up date fields before 1900, because they were designed for ‘modern’ data.

It may be a better idea to get a free account on Ancestry, and upload your tree there. You can make it private, so that other (unknown) users can’t see it, and can’t copy data from it, and at the same time, you can invite your relatives to work on it, for which they need a free account too.

If you make regular downloads from Ancestry in GEDCOM format, you can import those in Gramps for reports. If you make changes in Gramps, you can’t upload those into your current on-line tree, so that is not a good idea. You could do that with another paid program, but if you prefer Gramps, I suggest that you make all changes on-line, and follow the download/import path.

And if you want, you can use WinMerge to analyze changes in downloaded GEDCOM files. Gramps is not very good at that, yet.

Enno