Who Was That Person?

Archive for September, 2010

Busy week at Rec2Gen and at my photohistory site, ClassyArts.com, where I finally finished updating the photo-entry program, so that more images can be added to that database. I also added some more genealogical resources to the Erie County NY Genealogy site.

In the realm of indexing, I added several more pages from the 1880 census for the town of Elma, and more pages from the 1870 city directory for Buffalo. Very nearly finished the names beginning with ‘C’ in that city directory.

If my estimate for the number of names in the directory is correct, I’m almost 20% done with that. Does that seem high for just finishing up the letter C? It might if you do not know the relative frequency of surnames by first initial. In the USA, the most common first letters for surnames (in order of frequency) are B M S C H W. So the B section was the largest, and C will be fourth largest alphabetical section, it is not surprising that the first three letters of the alphabet exceed the 12% of total one would expect if all letters were equally represented. I may also have underestimated the total number of names, which would further skew the results.

Work continues on the blackboard section for individual reports. The hardest part is making sure that it works seamlessly with another section that has not been written yet — the attestations module. With attestations, members will be able to assert (or claim), with justification (supporting evidence from records), that a particular individual record needs to be corrected, or that two individual records need to be combined because they represent the same person. The ability to combine the different citations to one individual is really the strength of the Rec2Gen system, and the main way in which it differs from other sites and genealogy programs.

Also in the design stage is the RSS system, which will allow notification for ANY surname, so that users can easily see if any new records have been added for their names of interest. Don’t worry if you don’t know what RSS is, or how it works. It is really simple, as I’ll explain in a future post. But if you don’t want to use it, there will be a regular web-page alternative available too.

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

Erie County NY Genealogy – rec2gen site
Week 6 ending Monday 27 Sep 2010
# Sources Listed: 137 (21 increase)
# Articles: 1
# Places: 269
# Images: 12
# Scraps: 60
# Names in Db: 8,105 (1,193 increase)
# Factoids: 21,710 (4,371 increase)

It hardly seems possible, but the Erie County site has only been online for five weeks now. I didn’t have time to do much on the site this past week, but just a couple hours each day was enough to make some progress. I’ve begun indexing names beginning with the letter ‘C’ from the 1870 city directory, and I added names from a few more pages from the 1880 Census, enumeration district 90 — the town of Elma. My plan for the censuses is to do one enumeration district outside Buffalo from 1880, then one from Buffalo from 1900. Then I’ll add some parts of the 1850-1870 census, doing a town or ward from the city at a time. The enumeration districts have a couple thousands persons each, so they should go fairly fast — towns and wards can be much larger. Bit by bit, we can accomplish a lot, that is my philosophy.

The main progress on the site is not yet visible — I began coding the chalkboard pages. Each individual in our database will have a chalkboard, where members (free members or paid subscribers) will be able to claim their ancestors and post information, comments or questions about them. The system will also post messages, such as indicating changes in the record (paid members will be able to correct records, combine records that apply to one individual, etc.) or addition of new records for the same name.

When members write on their ancestors chalkboard, they will have complete control over who sees that message — the whole world, only other members, only others claiming descent from that same person, or just one individual (private messaging).

There will also be three levels of connection members can claim in relation to the ancestral person: direct descendant, kin (related collaterally or by marriage), or possible relation (exact relationship unknown). People claiming direct descent from an ancestor will automatically be added as a descendant of the ancestors of that person, if they are in the database or added to the database at a later date.

Needless to say, this takes a bit of programming, but I am making good progress at it. Here then, is the summary for the end of the 5th week of the Erie County NY Genealogy site:

Erie County NY Genealogy – rec2gen site
Week 5 ending Monday 20 Sep 2010
# Sources Listed: 116
# Articles: 1
# Places: 269
# Images: 12
# Scraps: 60 (11 increase)
# Names in Db: 6,912 (1,205 increase)
# Factoids: 17,339 (3,411 increase)

I find it easier to keep blog postings updated if they follow a specific frequency. When the Rec2Gen sites are more mature that will mean monthly progress reports, but during this frenetic building period I think more frequent news is warranted. So for now, I’ll post each Monday giving a synopsis of progress from the preceding week.

Since this the first of those weekly updates, I’ll just summarize progress to date, to provide a starting point. I registered the rec2gen domain at the end of May 2010, so the idea took shape a few weeks earlier, let’s call it May first just to make it easy to remember. Bits of the idea have been knocking around in my head for the past ten years, but only in these past few months have I decided to really take action.

I put the www.rec2gen.com site online July 12th, as recorded in the first post on this blog. I was still rethinking and tweaking the details of the system at that time, but I was concerned that even as I went online, that home site poorly represented the much grander idea behind it. So I hurried to get Erie County NY Genealogy online, so I could demonstrate the plan, rather than just talk about it. Just over a month later, on August 17, the Erie County site went live.

Software

As the demonstration site, I wanted to build the Erie County site using the same software customers will be able to use if they decide to build sites for other counties. So I wrote the program, but it is not ready for ‘prime time’ — there is a long way from functional to user-friendly. In other words, it works, but only I know how to use it. I need to go through and make it user-friendly, and ‘idiot-proof‘ it so new users can do no accidental harm, plus ‘harden‘ it so that if a malicious user got in, they could do no permanent damage. Programmers call programs in this state a ‘beta’ program, and that is what was used to build the Erie County site.

Before I could enter data, I had to enter the sources the data were derived from. I decided to make this a program to add content to the site, with the ultimate goal of including every major source of genealogical data, with information on where it can be accessed. I have barely begun to enter the thousands of sources for the county — in the summary below you can see there have been 116 Records entered so far.

Next, we needed programs to enter and record data and extract factoids from that data. There are going to be many of these eventually, each optimized for particular types of data in particular formats. For now, there are programs to enter ’scraps’ — old photos and memorabilia; city or county directories; lists of names (explained in this post); and census information.

I also decided to a graphics section to the site — so I wrote programs to enter and display pictures. These are the ones you see when you click the ‘images’ link on the county site. I entered a dozen of those in the Erie site (some come from the scraps collection), but have hundreds more to do.

The Data

There is a section on the site for general articles, where I have posted just one article so far. And there is a Geography page which lists the placenames for the entire county (269 for Erie County so far), with links to a live map of the locality. Additional information may be added to those pages in the future.

The heart of the site though is the database of names, each of which in turn is linked to the appropriate source citation and in the case of scraps, also an image of the original item. In the near future we will be adding a ‘blackboard’ page where descendants can discuss information on a particular ancestor, and code to allow people to ‘claim’ ancestors in the database.

So, here is our current status, and starting point for future progress reports:

Erie County NY Genealogy – rec2gen site
As of Monday 13 Sep 2010
# Sources Listed: 116
# Articles: 1
# Places: 269
# Images: 12
# Scraps: 49
# Names in Db: 5,707
# Factoids: 13,928

Well, I finished the program to enter census indexing into the system and entered a few pages from the 1880 census, but I’m still not satisfied with it. It works, but not as quick and easy as I want it to be. When the member version has been produced (same code but more instructions and guidance) people will be able to enter a single household, or can choose do a whole page at a time. I’ll be tweaking that program further in the days to come.

The data input for the directories has been improved to make data entry faster and easier too. I took a break out from work on the 1870 directory to do the one for 1832. That only took a week to enter all the names, since there were only 2232 people listed back then. I’m expecting about ten times as many in the 1870 directory — I have already entered a little more than that number of people for 1870 and I’m still in the section for names beginning with B.

Lots of data repeats from one line to the next in a directory. Business listings often include three or four principals, each with their own home address, but repeating the business name and address for each. And names, of course, will repeat if they are at all common. So to save typing time, a field in the data entry can be repeated with a single keystroke — the equal sign. Since names are entered as surname – comma – firstname(s) just as they are in the directory, the equal sign can also be used to repeat just the surname from the preceding line, followed by a comma and the rest of the name. That saves tons of typing, and hence lots of time.

I see from the status report at the bottom of the home page that I haven’t entered many memorabilia items lately — that is due to lack of time, not lack of material. I have about a hundred Erie county items to add, and over 500 for the main Rec2Gen site, with its nation-wide focus. I could have a lot more of those if I had the time to collect them, but there is no sense getting more than I’ll have time to enter. Little by little these things will get done, this is a long-term project. I’m currently spending about half my working day on the Erie County site (mostly programming more functions), with the other half spread among my photohistory, Irish Genealogy, and other projects.

Next on Erie County Genealogy I’ll be adding the user inter-action section. Each individual cited in the database will be available for members to ‘claim’ as an ancestor, relative or possible-relation. There will be a blackboard page for each listed individual, where those claiming that ancestor will be able to communicate with one another, post photographs, etc., with full control over who sees anything they add — the World, site members, only those claiming kinship with the individual, or just one person (i.e. private messaging). Kind of like Facebook for dead people.