ThinkGenealogy

For those who are interested in the technology side of genealogy and family history, check out the archived content from BYU’s 2008 Family History Technology Workshop.  The workshop was divided into three sections:

1. Human Interface
2. FamilySearch Projects
3. Automated Record Extraction & Linkage

Within each section were 3-4 presentations by both students and professionals that lasted about 20 minutes each.  The archived content contains a paper for each topic and optionally the presentation slides.  Twenty minutes is not a lot of time to present all the information that was contained in the paper so think of the presentation slides as a quick overview whereas the papers are more in depth. 

Human Interface

Student projects:

• Interactive Fan Charts: A Space-saving Technique for Genealogical Graph Exploration – the fan chart is great for visualization, now it can be used to navigate your family tree
• Geospatial Family History Research: Designing a Research Tool
   (aka Family Tree Mapper) – mashup of Google maps and data sources such as the new FamilySearch allows plotting family history on an interactive map
• Contextual Note-Taking for Family History – mount a digital camera to a microfilm reader, hook the camera to a laptop, and use software to capture images of the microfilm and enter notes

Non-student project:

• 10 Things Genealogy Software Should Do – Ten ideas on how to improve genealogy software

FamilySearch Projects

Non-Student projects:

• Lessons from FamilySearch Labs – FamilySearch Labs group gives 9 lessons learned while building more useable family history applications over the last year and a half
• Open Edit and Source Centric – explores how structured genealogy sites can still apply wiki-style collaboration
• Keeping it Spinning: A Background Check of Virtual Storage – comparison of virtual storage providers

Automated Record Extraction & Linkage

Student project:

• Utilizing Stacking for Feature Reduction in Graph-Based Record Linkage – analysis of how to more accurately combine relevant information from multiple sources to individuals in a pedigree

Non-student projects:

• Pattern Markup Language: A Pattern-Based Tool for Quickly Automating Genealogy Data Extraction – a language and tools for extracting genealogy data from websites
• Genealogical Record Linkage on International Data – challenges faced when linking records from these languages and cultures: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic, Scandinavian
• Can a Layered Approach to Historical Family Reconstitution Make a Difference in the Final Results? – comparision of two methods to identify families and lineages in data sets