Welcome @DrMartinus
First, for an older tree, it is important to know that beginning with Gramps 5.0, we had to move away from BSDDB database engine.
BSDDB was the primary database engine from Gramps 2.0 (May 2005) to the Gramps 5.0 (July 2018) version. It was the ‘legacy’ engine for 5.1 (August 2019) and became ‘read-only’ with the 5.2 (February 2024) release.
The
bsddbmodule is incompatible with modern Linux and newer Python versions (Python 3.10+) because it was removed from the standard library, and legacy Berkeley DB system libraries mismatch older bindings
It becomes increasingly difficult to support in 6.0.x release. The new default is SQLite.
I recommend downgrading to Gramps 5.1.6 (June 2023), find the database folder (more on that later), make a backup, and either :
- “convert” the tree to SQLite in Gramps 5.1.6, or
- import the backup file into a newly created empty tree using Gramps 6.0.8
Finding the old database path:
Search your computer for the old gramps.ini plain text file that contains (among other things) your settings from the Gramps Preferences… including the Database path. Since you may have different versions of Gramps installed, there are probably multiple gramps.ini files, each in a subfolder labeled with the Gramps version number. (e.g. /home/districtsupport/.gramps/gramps51/gramps.ini)
Look in the gramps.ini file for the [database] chunk. And note the path= string. (Also note the backup-path= to discover if there is a newer backup file available.)
example:
[database]
;;autobackup=0
;;backend='sqlite'
backup-on-exit=0
backup-path='/home/districtsupport/Documents'
;;compress-backup=1
;;host=''
path='/home/districtsupport/.gramps/disable/grampsdb'
;;port=''
In the Family Tree tab of the v5.1 preferences, set the Family Tree Database path: to the path shown in the gramps.ini file.
After setting the correct path, the Family Trees → Manage Family Trees… dialog should now list the saved trees.