data

I have been working my family history on and off for a number of years. As my older relatives age, the time left to get their stories is restricted. Sadly dementia claimed the memories of more than one before I’ve had a chance to interview them.

I’m using the brilliant GenealogyJ to catalog the information. It’s a standards based, cross-platform, open-source genealogy data viewer/editor (whew!). That means it reads and writes GEDCOM standard 5.5 or draft 5.5.1 data files for easy data sharing with software and other family researchers. Many other programs out there have quirks when it comes to sharing data with others. Modern genealogy research requires data portability.

There are other free and paid options available and I’ll list some I’ve tried at a later date. Comment below if you can’t wait for that post.

In the meanwhile I’d like to note a best practice method for genealogy research: Document sources as you go. Even if the source is personal memory. Include that in every individual record so you know where you stand. When a cousin provides birthday information, make a note of the source alongside the birthday entry. When the National Archives offers evidence of an ancestor’s birthday – note the source.

As you gather more and more evidence of an event, you can weigh the quality of the sources and the data. This is especially useful to researchers who build on your work. One day some cousins kid will ask for a copy as a basis of their work. Give them a break and note your sources. Also it’s a reminder down the track of why you thought your great-great-grandmother was four years younger than her mother.

The rest of this post gets technical and is for researchers and my personal notes. Let’s say you want to save the audio interview with your Grandmother as supporting evidence for a number of people and events.

Tags: data, dataportability, howto, standards