Re: Landrum family genealogies
-
In reply to:
Re: Landrum family genealogies
Jean Christian 10/15/00
Please pardon this long post. I have received a number of inquiries about global, e.g., universal, databases from this forum. Jean Landrum Christian brings up an interesting point about the variety of currently available infomation on the web. Developing and implementing a Landrum Geneaology Database is not a small undertaking and it is more than mildly ambitious. A variety of issues need to be explored, and I will briefly address some of these below.
I am not proposing that this should be a for-profit initiative (there are too many genealogy pay sites already!) Quite the opposite, in fact- I am a proponent of open content and open source coding. It should be accessible to everyone free of charge.
Developing a Landrum Genealogy Database will require volunteerism and agreement by all parties or a steering committee that can act in a leadership role.Some form of committee would be necessary, with individuals chairing subcommittees. Representatives for all branches would be responsible for compiling branch genealogies, or if compiled already, getting them into the agreed upon format, which can then be incorporated into the larger database.
Most genealogical postings on the web that I have seen (and I haven't visited the pay sites) contain discrete sets of information pertaining to this or that relationship of one or more members of one branch of the Landrum bloodline, traced across a few generations, with a range of information about individuals and references to roots, siblings, and offspring, etc.
These geneaologies do not uniformly trace or follow the branches beyond one or perhaps two generations at most. It is difficult to make sense of it all, under the present circumstance. That brings us back to the original reason I posted the suggestion for development of a more holistic database.
No universal standard for presenting the full range of data that can be considered as genealogical information has been developed.There are basic geneaological trees that can be used as templates, but those are most often hierarchical, and somewhat static in presentation. Data input and retrieval is limited.
What I am proposing is a relational, or object-oriented, database that will allow for more and broader categories of information storage.Relationships between the fields can be defined and described. This would facilitate compilation of broader ranges of more detailed information, that can be stored and retrieved in a variety of ways upon query. Building this type of database would involve a fair bit of trial and error testing in the development and implementation phases.
There are models already in place, but I am not certain at this time which one would be most effectivbe,a nd need to take some time reviewing the range of presently available models.
There are guidelines available for this sort of system, and every database vendor has its own proprietary system, and methods for building databases.All of them use Structured Query Language (SQL) but each of them has a proprietary version of SQL, however there recent developments in the industry, and there isa shift toward open content and open source code database management systemsunder way.The advent of extensible markup languages, such as XML and its variants, e.g., XHTML, and other things, etc., including Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Resource Description Framework (RFD), Document Type Definitions (DTDs), etc, provide useful resources for this type of development.Most database management systems now incorporate JAVA as well and it is possible to embed SQL in JAVA, and these things make development and interoperability much more feasible.
The idea, of course,is to make the database information accessible to all and that would require developing user-friendly, platform-independent, web site interfaces, and JAVA is the option I would prefer for that phase of development.
There is one more aspect that needs to be addressed at the outset. The Landrum Geneaology Database is going to require acquisition of basic things: a database management system (server and client); a web server; a physical space to house and maintain the system (e.g., a home); internet access, and personnel to service and maintain the system, as well as other things I won't get into here.Those are not inexpensive items to acquire, and are matters for later discussion. Before that is addressed the more basic set of items discussed above needs to be put in place.
More Replies:
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies
3/15/01
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies
Jean Christian 10/15/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
10/15/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
2/24/01
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Jean Christian 10/15/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Linda 10/15/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Jean Christian 10/16/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Linda 10/15/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
10/19/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
George Landrum 10/19/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Linda 10/19/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
2/24/01
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Linda 2/24/01
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
2/24/01
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Linda 2/24/01
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Jean Christian 2/25/01
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
10/20/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Linda 10/20/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
10/20/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
TED LANDRUM 10/21/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Linda 10/21/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
Linda 10/20/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
George Landrum 10/20/00
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database
-
Re: Landrum family genealogies-Database