Hi Daniel,
You are right to point out a rich source of data from the GEDCOM files.
But right now our research group does not have resources to send into
this unfamiliar territory. We need people like yourself who stand
between the programmers and the domain users. It should not be too hard
to program the conversion if you are already familiar with the GEDCOM
format. I'd suggest generating JSON instead of XML, as JSON lends itself
to the JSONP trick that allows cross-domain data transfer.
Actually, start simple: just manually convert one file, show that to
some people and get them excited about the possibilities. I'd suggest
using Exhibit to add more browsing features... like this:
http://www.gageandtim.com/family/history/ancestors.html
Cheers,
David
Daniel Longmore wrote:
> I have gone through the tutorials on timeline and exhibit. I am very
> impressed with what can be done in such a short time. I would imagine
> that the list of suggestions for enhancements is long. I have another
> suggestion if you don't mind taking a minute to consider it. There is
> this huge source of data (billions of records) waiting to be charted
> with timeline in a format closely related to the (xml, json) format. I
> am speaking of GEDCOM
> <http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Home/FAQ/frameset_faq.asp?FAQ=faq_gedcom.asp>
>
> files produced by genealogist all around the world. It is the defacto
> standard for genealogy. I won't argue for or against it being used as
> a standard. It is plainly evident that it is heavily used in the
> genealogy industry. I am playing with using timeline with my own
> personal genealogy. It is very interesting to play with. It takes
> several steps to get from the gedcom state to the json state. (1)
> convert gedcom to tab delimited, (2) convert tab delimited to json,
> (3) do a tiny bit of manual cleaning. Then I can view it with
> timeline. Most genealogist will not spend the effort to do this type
> of work. So my request is this. Even though I doubt that marketing is
> what drives the features for timeline. I can really see how a lot of
> people could use timeline easily if would read GEDCOM files directly.
> Right off I can see the need for a utility that would be used to
> cleanup the gedcom files dates. For instance many times genealogist
> will enter a date in the following format when they are estimating the
> year "Abt 1843". Another example of data cleaning I ran into was when
> the start date was after the end date. Well I have rambled on long
> enough. But let me know if you have any interest. I would be willing
> to give some assistance when possible. My programming skills are
> mainly in Oracle PL/SQL. I have played with enough other languages and
> the web to be of some help. Thanks again for the awesome tools.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://simile.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/general
>
_______________________________________________
General mailing list
[email protected]
http://simile.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/general
