| … | … | @@ -36,7 +36,43 @@ The topic is difficult. |
| 36 | 36 | Genealogy |
| 37 | 37 | --------- |
| 38 | 38 | A concrete example is in order, one that sits part-way between |
| 39 | | abstraction and algorithmic directness. |
| 39 | abstraction and algorithmic directness. Genealogical research provides |
| 40 | such an example. |
| 41 | |
| 42 | Genealogy, as practiced by familysearch.org (controlled by the Church |
| 43 | of the LDS) is semi-automated. The raw material consists of public data |
| 44 | about births, deaths, census records, military draft records, |
| 45 | naturalization records, passenger lists, parish church records, |
| 46 | obituaries and the like. Each data item provides a bit of information |
| 47 | that attests a specific event. Some are highly structured: birth |
| 48 | certificates have a regular form. Others, not so much: obituaries may or |
| 49 | may not list relatives, and may or may not make the relationships clear. |
| 50 | The task is to stitch together a genealogical structure out of these |
| 51 | fragmentary jigsaw pieces. |
| 52 | |
| 53 | The evidentiary issue is that no single attestation of an event or |
| 54 | relation is fully trustworthy. A short survey is worthwhile. |
| 55 | Most of the records predate computerization, and are hand-written, |
| 56 | usually in cursive. Cursive writing is not standardized: there is a vast |
| 57 | variety of styles, especially problematic in 18th and 19th century |
| 58 | European records. There are errors from the transcription of these |
| 59 | texts. The spelling of names and surnames presents a challenge, |
| 60 | espcially for European immigrants, where the spelling conventions clash |
| 61 | between the native language and English: many names are simplified and |
| 62 | Anglicized. Catholic Church parish records often convert native names to |
| 63 | Church Latin. Census records indicate that some people are either sloppy |
| 64 | or are fudging the facts, or perhaps they really do not know thier |
| 65 | birthdays or how they were spelling their surname a decade earlier. |
| 66 | Many surnames are extremely common, and there are many couples named |
| 67 | "John & Mary". |
| 68 | |
| 69 | In practice, the stitching-together is semi-automated. The |
| 70 | familysearch.org system offers up a list of possible record matches, |
| 71 | based on names, dates, locations. A human reviewer then has to review |
| 72 | the record and make a judgement call: is this an appropriate match? If |
| 73 | so, it can be added to a record, buttressing support for a particular |
| 74 | name, date, location, spelling, event. |
| 75 | |
| 40 | 76 | |
| 41 | 77 | Status |
| 42 | 78 | ------ |