Is anybody on this group an active Genealogist?

[Richard Evans]

Hi,

I have an idea for a TiddlyWiki to aid in guiding, documenting and planning the research on an individual. I am not a very good programmer, I feel the need for help. Is there anybody who would be interested in co-operating on developing this idea.

         Sincerely R A Evans

[Pit.W.]

Hello Richard Evans 

The good news: i have the same idea

The bad news: I am not a good programmer either

My initial steps are based on my favourite tiddlywiki plugins: Tiddlymap, tidgraph, timeline

The plugins are fantastic, my progress pathetic.

What I have found out is, there seems to be a universally accepted data model called GEDCOM. Note the word "seems".

I look forward to exchange experiences

Kind regards

Pit

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[@TiddlyTweeter]

I am no good at programming either.

But I do grasp the issues....

1 - GEDCOM is about standardising data. The person to communicate with is David Szego ... see this recent thread of his huge amount of work tracking his own history & creating a genealogical data structure in TW.

2 - The VISUAL representation of genealogical trees in TW will likely require a Javascript library. I really don't think the JS library behind TiddlyMap would work well. I tried and failed. It does not deal with that kinda hierarchy well. Genealogical trees are very simple. But so far nobody in the TW world has figured out how to do them easily.

Best wishes
Josiah

[Mark S.]

Hello,

Wikipedia lists 22 genealogical software packages, and I'm sure it's not exhaustive. Another site lists 7 free software packages for genealogy. When you look at the standard feature set, you see a lot of work went into developing any one of these.

So, I'm curious to know what you would hope TW would bring to the table? It certainly wouldn't be the right tool currently for large datasets.

Good luck!
Mark

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Mark S.

I agree for massive datasets that I doubt there is any point in going TW since the deep genealogy stuff has been done infinitely already and has a defined structure.

For what anthropologists and linguists need it might actually be very good.

They are not interested per se in genealogy, but principally in "kinship terminology". That is much smaller datasets. They are examining extant social relations, rather than making lists of the past.

TW, given its flex, might also cope quite well with emergent relationships like "my partner is a transexual" and "our daughter is my previous second wife's adopted daughter too".

 Best wishes
Josiah

[Richard Evans]

Hi,

First of all I want to thank you all for replying. Though I most of you seem to have jumped to the conclusion, that I am trying to replace genealogical programs. I am not. In fact, I believe I have identified, a gap in the market.

I would direct you to the phrase I used in my initial post:

"TiddlyWiki to aid in guiding, documenting and planning the research on an individual."

The operative word there is individual. I am considering a TiddlyWiki that concentrates on a single person.

I know from my own experience that managing the research is the most critical area when tracing your Family Tree. The number of times I have completed a piece of research, only to find I have already done it some years previously and not documented the results properly. Goodness knows how many times I have duplicated a research task that had a negative result. I frequently find I have essential information missing from important people in my tree. Or I am just confused about how best to proceed on researching an individual.

 A genealogist's requirements can be broken down into three components, a research plan or checklist, a research log and documentation of the results, positive and negative. There are various tools used by genealogists to manage their research. People use Word or One Note or Evernote or pen and paper. Personally, I think only pen and paper has the flexibility to handle all three components.

I have a thought, and it is just a thought at present, that TiddlyWiki can be used to combine the three tasks, planning, managing progress and the documenting the results. The requirements I want the result to fulfil are:

•     provide an checklist template of the research items to be completed.
•     document the places where research needs to be carried out, so when opportunity arises, the researcher has a defined list of tasks
•     document the places research has been carried out
•     document the results of each research task, positive and negative.
•     highlight the areas where results are lacking.
•     provide a means of monitoring the progress of each research item and research area.

A few definitions are appropriate here:

• research item - is researching a specific facet of the individuals life, e.g. his birth certificate, her occupation etc.
• research area - contains a number of research items that together would provide a complete picture of the individual's life in that area. e.g. birth, marriage, death, school time, military service, profession, dealings with justice system etc.
• research task - is the lowest granularity in this hierarchy, each research item would be composed of a number of research tasks that endeavour to completely document a research item.

Well, it seems I had thought about this more than I realised, it wasn't until I started writing this that it all came together. I would be very interested in your thoughts and suggestions as to how to proceed.

    Best Wishes Ric Evans

[codacoder...@outlook.com]

On Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 5:37:08 PM UTC-5, Richard Evans wrote:

Hi,

First of all I want to thank you all for replying. Though I most of you seem to have jumped to the conclusion, that I am trying to replace genealogical programs. I am not. In fact, I believe I have identified, a gap in the market.

I would direct you to the phrase I used in my initial post:

"TiddlyWiki to aid in guiding, documenting and planning the research on an individual."

The operative word there is individual. I am considering a TiddlyWiki that concentrates on a single person.

Which is *exactly*  how my wife uses TW.  She's a genealogy nutcase, total addict and has... I dunno, 30? 40? TWs devoted to the research and data curation.  She uses Scrivener for "presentation" (having tried and given up trying to use it for the data/research side) and now sticks with TW for "everything".

I know from my own experience that managing the research is the most critical area when tracing your Family Tree. The number of times I have completed a piece of research, only to find I have already done it some years previously and not documented the results properly.

Jeez... you *sound* like her ;)

 

Goodness knows how many times I have duplicated a research task that had a negative result. I frequently find I have essential information missing from important people in my tree. Or I am just confused about how best to proceed on researching an individual.

 A genealogist's requirements can be broken down into three components, a research plan or checklist, a research log and documentation of the results, positive and negative. There are various tools used by genealogists to manage their research. People use Word or One Note or Evernote or pen and paper.

or TW :)

And census data changes all the time, where people on Ancestry.com transcribe old docs and (obviously) make mistakes in doing so.

 

Personally, I think only pen and paper has the flexibility to handle all three components.

My wife does a lot with pen and paper but for genealogy, she insists on TW.

Just my $0.02 by proxy :)

[Richard Evans]

I would very much like to compare notes with your wife. Please ask her to contact me.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

A small footnote, Richard, before I forget.

The kind of genealogical mapping/dataering you  refer to ...

"TiddlyWiki to aid in guiding, documenting and planning the research on an individual."

Is, exactly what anthropologist's do. They look at relationships in relation an individual. In the anthro lingo "EGO".

This would likely well match your aim.

And, yes, there is both a gap & a need for new tools that make it easier to both collect data and generate diagrams of "Ego-centred" kinship charts.

There are some Javascript libraries that facilitate this available but I don't have the competence to explore their potential usability in TiddlyWiki.

Best wishes
Josiah

[Richard Evans]

Thank you, Josiah,

I am only using TiddlyWiki as a tool to capture research about an individual. I leave the relationships to the genealogical program I use. Also, like you, I do not have the skills to incorporate a Javascript library. It sounds fascinating, but it is too far outside my focus.

   Ciao Ric Evans