Who Was That Person?

Did not spend much time on the Erie County site this week, had other things going on that kept me from the computer much of the week. Fun things, like time on the beach (I live just a couple miles from the ocean). All work and no play, as the cliche goes.

Still, managed to add over a thousand more names to the database, mostly from that 1870 Buffalo City Directory — up to the names beginning with ‘G’ now. Each name entered generates one to three associated ‘factoids’ — always the person is living 1870, usually with a specific address. That is one fact. The occupation is listed on about 90% of the names, so a second fact is generated, giving the person’s occupation in 1870. And a great many of the listings include a business name or address, so the third fact in those cases is that the person was working for a particular organization, or was self-employed. Sometimes the directory does not make clear the distinction between self-employed and those working for others, so we make an educated guess, based on the appearance of the listing and kind of occupation — not perfect, but that is why the results are treated as ‘factoids’ rather than absolute facts.

The next big part of the site development that still needs programming will allow members to submit attestations: statements that will change (correct) data, or that will combine two database records into one, because they refer to the same person. The new derivative record will include the combined information from both original records. The original is retained, so it possible to trace back, to see where particular details came from. This combined record can itself be combined with other records, to build up a complete picture of the information available on an individual.

To be really effective, members will also be able (eventually, more programming required…) to enter information from records not yet in the database, for their own ancestors. Then, using the attestations, they will be able to combine all the information into a single record – with each detail traceable to its source. That is how genealogy should be done — too many programs and sites allow sloppy documentation to mar the reliability of their information.

Here is our summary of data entry progress for the past week:

Erie County NY Genealogy – rec2gen site
Week 11 ending Monday 1 Nov 2010
# Sources Listed: 150
# Articles: 1
# Places: 269
# Images: 12
# Scraps: 70
# Names in Db: 13,123 (1,042 increase)
# Factoids: 36,837 (3,247 increase)