[open-humanities] BillionGraves index/images now available through FamilySearch

Tue Dec 18 13:09:00 UTC 2012

Hi Todd,

Looks great. I think this originally came up in a discussion with Anne
Powell-Smith (cc). I'll try and hunt down that etherpad.

One thing I do remember from before was that it might be worth contacting
digital classicists / archaeologists, who may already have a standard
schema in place for databases of graves and burial-sites...

J

On 18 December 2012 05:43, todd.d.robbins at gmail.com <
todd.d.robbins at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I had submitted the message below back in June to the Open GLAM [1] and
> Open Humanities [2] (both OKFN lists) and never saw a response, so I
> thought I'd revisit the topic. I've been working on various projects lately
> having to do with local history and civic data. I typed up a very
> preliminary, but potential schema for *Open Gravestones* (a once dreamed
> about OKFN project of which I can't seem to find the EtherPad discussion
> [James Harriman-Smith, any idea?]). Here's a schema example as a JSON
> serialization:
>
> {
> "name": {
> "surname": "Schmidt",
>  "given": "John",
> "middle": "Jacob Jingleheimer",
> "suffix": "[string]",
>  "additional": "[string]",
> "patronymic": "[string]",
> "maternalSurname": "[string]",
>  "paternalSurname": "[string]"
> },
>
> "birth": {
>  "year": "1808",
> "month": "1",
> "day": "1",
>  "place": "Berlin, Germany"
> },
>  "death": {
> "year": "1888",
> "month": "1",
>  "day": "1",
> "place": "Berlin, Germany"
> },
>
> "burial": {
> "year": "1888",
> "month": "3",
>  "day": "13",
> "place": "Berlin, Germany",
> "graveNumber": "[integer]",
>  "mortuary": "[string]",
> "comment": "[string]",
> "block": "[integer]",
>  "tract": "[integer]",
> "lot": "[integer]",
> "space": "[integer]",
>  "segment": "[integer]",
> "level": "[integer]"
> },
>  "headstone": {
> "type": "upright",
>  "material": "granite",
> "color": "grey",
> "comment": "long"
>  }
> }
>
> I understand the keys and/or values of the example are fairly Western and
> at this point don't represent the kind of broad terminology we would
> require. I've been sketching up other versions of the data model and
> potential applications over the past few months as well. I'd love to get
> some movement going on an open source burial grounds data platform as
> genealogical data remains very popular and up until now very is dominated
> by closed data providers. GEDCOM X [3], FamilySearch's genealogical data
> standard project, will likely touch on this topic, but it's not clear when
> that will be or what the licenses will be. Anyhow, I hope this email gets a
> conversation going.
>
> Cheers!
>
> -Tod
>
> [1] http://openglam.org/
> [2] http://humanities.okfn.org/
> [3] http://www.gedcomx.org/
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: todd.d.robbins at gmail.com <todd.d.robbins at gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 6:08 PM
> Subject: BillionGraves index/images now available through FamilySearch
> To: open-glam at lists.okfn.org, open-humanities at lists.okfn.org
>
>
> So I've been on the sidelines of the discussion about a potential Open
> Gravestones project [1] within OKFN and have been following the
> BillionGraves [2] project. The index/images are now available through
> FamilySearch, though lacking any declaration of openness about the data. [3]
>
> There are nearly one million records so far, and I'm wondering if OKFN and
> others (the Open Genealogy Alliance [4], for example) would be interested
> in entering talks with FamilySearch and BillionGraves about adopting
> Creative Commons or Open Definition licenses for these types of (generally)
> public domain documents. Since FamilySearch is the largest genealogical
> organization in the world, I figure this could be a worthy project to
> invest some thought and time.
>
> I'd love to get Open Gravestones going and I'm curious of your thoughts.
>
> [1] http://humanities.okfn.org/2012/02/17/meeting-2012-02-15/
> [2] http://billiongraves.com/
> [3] See: https://familysearch.org/node/1714 and
> https://familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://familysearch.org/searchapi/search/collection/2026973
> [4] http://www.opengenalliance.org/
>
>
> --
> Tod Robbins
> Digital Collections Librarian, MLIS
> todrobbins.com | @todrobbins <http://www.twitter.com/#!/todrobbins>
>
>
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>

-- 
James Harriman-Smith
Ph.D. Candidate, English Faculty
Peterhouse
University of Cambridge
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