Beyond is changing.

In a sentence, I’m too busy and so I’m going to withdraw from managing/writing Beyond as a social network or online record manager, and instead I’m going to turn this blog into a genealogy think tank of sorts. With everything else I’ve got going on right now, it’s for the best.

I hope people will take the ideas from here (or at least the good ones ;)) and fly with them, making awesome software that changes the genealogy world. This isn’t the end, mind you — it’s just the beginning. The difference is that it’s not the path I thought I was on when I first got on it. :)

Transforming Beyond into a genealogy R&D lab of sorts is the right move for me, I think. The ideas will be open for anyone to use, and I intend to post small prototypes in various languages (sample code, that is) to help developers implement them. Within the next little while I’ll post my thoughts on social networking as it relates to genealogy, specifically all the stuff I was planning for Beyond and never blogged about.

Granted, all this leaves me high and dry without a nice record manager to use on my Mac, but hopefully someone will create an exceedingly cool Web 2.0 genealogy app that fills that niche. I wish Beyond could’ve been that app… Yours can, though — may there be many who rise to the challenge! :)

Technorati Tags: genealogy

This changes everything.

Tim’s comment about a “Flickr for genealogy” has sparked a flurry of thoughts in my head, and here’s what I’ve decided.

1. Web all the way. Meaning, to pull this off, it has to be a child of the Web, not a desktop app that happens to be on the web. Think social networking. That’s going to be the focus, not so much the data. (But don’t worry, the data will still be important.)

2. Simple. While being able to store anything and everything is a noble ideal, I think it’s only going to work (at this stage) if the fields are set (the core data), with expandable metadata later on.

3. Low barrier to entry. It has to be really easy to sign in and get started. To host this, we come to…

4. A startup. I never really thought I’d do this, but I think it’s time to create a startup to host Beyond. It’s going to be a service rather than a software package. (For now, that is. Later on I’ll wrap the software into an install-on-your-own-server deal, but that’s secondary.) Time to figure out a good business model…

5. Web 2.0. Kind of in line with #1, Beyond will now be even more part of the Web 2.0 paradigm. For example, individuals and families will have permalinks, so that you can tell people about them. You’ll be able to share whatever parts of your family tree you want to. There’ll be a simple blog built-in (to function as a research log, basically), but you’ll also be able to pull in an RSS feed from your existing blog instead if you want, and you’ll be able to post to your blog directly from Beyond (via the various blogging APIs). There’ll be tags, watchlists (RSS feeds, that is), comments (on individuals, families, your profile, etc.), the works.

6. Community. I think a lot of the stuff in #5 will help with this. As for linking people together, I’m thinking about something along the lines of LibraryThing’s “works.” Basically, you have John Doe born in 1801, and user B has a John Doe born in 1801, and the system automatically picks them up as a possible match. You can say, “My John Doe is the same as user B’s John Doe.” And it’ll keep track of how many people say so-and-so is the same as so-and-so. I haven’t figured out all the logistics yet, but this seems like the right way to go. And I hesitate to have the system actually match anyone together; I’d rather leave the logistics of that to the humans.

7. Share. So far I’ve been in the genealogy-is-private mindset, but I think I’ve finally gotten rid of that. In this new world, it’s about sharing. Sure, you’ll be able to mark your data private if you want, but the default will be to share, share, share.

8. People, not pedigree. Up till now, my mindset has been that there’s this structure out there — a pedigree — and you make people fit into the pedigree. It doesn’t always work, though, because people got remarried, etc. When looking at Flickr last night for inspiration, however, I realized that there’s a better way to go about it. (Well, I think it’s better. Only time and a prototype will tell. :)) Individuals are like photos, and families are like groups. Instead of putting things into pedigrees, you add individuals (like adding photos), and then you can sort them into families (like putting photos into groups or sets, with predefined roles like “father,” “mother,” “child”). To link generations together, you just put the linking person into both families. (For example, Hoover Macgillicuddy is the father of Family A. His parents are Wilford and Maretta Pinegar, who are in Family B. You just have to add Hoover as a child in Family B.) And it’ll automatically stitch together the pedigree for you. What this means is that you won’t be doing most of your work from the pedigree. Instead, you’ll work from the individual and group lists (using browse and search). It’s different, to be sure, but I’ve got a gut feeling that it’s a good change. We’ll see.

9. A deadline. I’ve got a feeling that I can make this happen by the end of August. I don’t know yet if that’s utter madness or not, but heck, there’s a rumor floating around that Flickr went up two weeks after the initial idea. If they can do it, so can I. (And if the rumor’s false, well, that’s not going to stop me. :))

10. A name. Somebody’s already got www.beyondproject.com. I do rather like the name Beyond, so it’s time to come up with some variation with a dot-com ending (kind of like how Backpack is at www.backpackit.com). Hmm…

Technorati Tags: Beyond, Flickr, LibraryThing, Backpack

I spent a little bit of time on Ancestry’s OneWorldTree today, checking out one of my lines (Abram W. Houchins and Martha Sneed). Turns out there’s a huge amount of information on their ancestors (thousands of names). Now, I don’t know that all of it is correct, of course, but it’s a start (and it’s a lot easier to verify it when I know what it is I’m looking for).

Why do I bring this up? Two reasons. First, there’s no way to download it from OWT. No link to download a GEDCOM, nothing. Annoying. I’ll have to go through it all by hand. There are 50+ generations. Yes, that’s right. Good thing it’s summer.

The other reason is that when you have that much genealogy, it would be really, really, really nice to get an overview of what’s there, where the holes are, etc. So I think Beyond needs supercharts, which will be overviews of your entire tree (or whatever part of your pedigree you choose, let’s say), shrunk to the size of a single page. I don’t know yet if I’ll just use a really tiny font size or if I’ll replace the names with something else (somehow). (Ideally it would actually be legible text, and since it’ll be PDF I’ll also include the option of printing at a larger size, 5 feet across or what have you.)

And finally, this is addicting. :) I’ve written on Footprints from the Past about what I found, and it’s really fun. Even if it’s not all accurate. (And half the fun will be verifying it and finding out that it really is true, or isn’t, or whatever the case may be.) I need more time!

At any rate, I’m really looking forward to being able to pull all this external information into my Beyond tree, greyed out so I know it’s not verified. With PAF it’s too hard to see at a glance what’s real and what’s not. I plan to go through OneWorldTree when I get Beyond to a usable state, seeing what’s been done on all the lines in my tree. Then I can add it all in, conflicting information and all, and start the work of verifying without worrying about missing stuff. Ah, it’ll be great!

Technorati Tags: Ancestry, genealogy, OneWorldTree

I’ve created a new blog, Footprints from the Past, to serve as a place for me to record my genealogical research. What this means for Beyond is 1) I’ll be doing more research and thus be more aware of how Beyond can fill users’ needs, 2) I’ll be more motivated to work on it, and 3) I’ll have a good testing ground for figuring out how genealogies are best published via the web. (For #3, I look at some of the record manager-generated web pages out there and it’s really, really hard to find what you’re looking for on them, so I’ll definitely have some ideas there.) Sorry for the sloooooow rate of development at the moment, by the way.

Technorati Tags: genealogy, Beyond

No, I’m not dead. :) School is definitely taking its toll, but things should be a bit smoother from here out, with no major assignments left other than my finals.

Anyway, that’s boring. :) More importantly, I’ve made a mockup of the pedigree view:

Over the next little while I’ll be testing a few different ideas for viewing and editing data. (For example, since this is a web app, should I display the whole tree and make the user scroll, or should I chunk it into three or four generations at a time? Are the fancy boxes around each individual necessary? When the user clicks on an individual or a family, should it take them to a new detail page, or should it bring up a lightbox-ish modal dialog box, or something else?) This is admittedly a bit spartan, but I think I’ll stick with this black-line pedigree layout (since it does work) until I get everything else done. Then and only then will I consider adding colored boxes and all of that.

Anyway, I’ve got to run, but I’ll be making more time for Beyond now that my Music 201 paper is done.

Technorati Tags: genealogy, pedigree

O, the joys of being busy. ~sigh~ Midterms are at it again, along with a myriad of other projects (designing wedding invitations for an old roommate, deadlines at work, etc. etc. etc.), and so not much is happening right now. Three more weeks and school is over. But waiting for good conditions is a bad idea, because in all reality, do good conditions ever really come? No. If it’s going to happen, it’s got to happen in spite of everything else that’s going on. I’ll have to manage my free time better. Since I haven’t fixed my laptop yet, I’ll try to do most of my designing and mental work at home, where all I’ll need is pen and paper. And then when I’m actually up here at work I can do the coding and HTML mockups and the other “real” stuff.

I’ve debated whether I ought to be so open with the inner workings of this project (especially when it’s not so flattering), but I’ll stay true to the original vision: leave this historical record behind of how Beyond came to be. Struggles and victories alike will be written, for I intend this to be a true-to-life tale of how a web app was born. (And since it’s not commercial, there’s no need to worry about trade secrets flying away.)

Yes, development is coming along very slowly, and that bothers me a great deal, but that’s reality when one is doing this on the side (in addition to school and a job). And that’s okay.

Anyway, enough philosophizing — I need to get to study for those midterms so I can take them tomorrow and get back to work on this.

It seems like genealogy and pedigrees are eternally bound together — you don’t get one without the other. And since Beyond is a genealogy app, it follows that it’ll have a pedigree.

So, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. What’s the purpose of a pedigree chart? The obvious answer is that it’s to be printed out and put up on your wall. But in the context of actually working on our genealogy, why do we use it? (This is keeping in mind that there are also individual detail views, family views, etc.) Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Pedigrees help you see the structure of your family tree, specifically your direct lines. They don’t offer all the details (like your grandfather’s brother’s children), but they do show you the basics — the branches if you will. The leaves are all the extra details that flesh out your ancestor’s life and make them more than just facts on paper, and they’re mostly found in the individual and family views. As part of showing the structure, pedigrees naturally show you where the ends of lines are, which is nice when trying to decide which part of your tree you want to work on.

Now for the disadvantages: as mentioned, they don’t show collateral lines (like your grandfather’s brother), just direct lines. It’s also very easy for them to get cluttered.

With the purpose of pedigrees in mind — showing the structure — I think the information shown on a typical chart can be pared down quite a bit. What’s most important? The person’s name and their place in the hierarchy. The dates and places are still important, but not nearly as much as the name. Nor do you really need a ton of information there on the pedigree, because there’s an individual view which houses all the detail. Let’s keep it as simple as possible.

So, the name. It probably ought to be the full name because that’s a good way to differentiate relatives who have the same first and last name (like John Franklin Crowder and John Preston Crowder in the Pedigree Sandbox example).

Because we’re not using the pedigree to enter data (more on that later), we don’t need the full gamut of dates. All we really need is an idea of when they lived, and the standard birthyear-deathyear (e.g., 1819-1871) does that for us. If the death year is missing, “1819-” would give the impression that they’re still alive, so “1819-????” is probably better. (”-unknown” would have to be translated into all the languages and we’ll avoid that if we can.) If the birth year is unknown but the death year isn’t, “????-1871″. And if both are unknown, then the date probably should be left blank. (I’ve thought about using another existing date instead, like a marriage date, but it may get confusing. In those cases the person’s position in the pedigree should give a rough idea of when they lived.

Now for places. One of the things that you can’t really model in PAF is where a family lived. You can model where major events in the lives of the individuals took place (birth, marriage, death), but you can’t say “This family lived in Montgomery County, NC from 1830 to 1892.” For now we’ll probably display a compact version of the birth place and the death place, separated by a slash (e.g., “Montgomery, NC / Anson, NC”). All you need is a general idea of where the person was, because remember, this is just the outline of our tree.

More on the family modeling thing. It would be pretty nice to be able to have information about the family as a whole, rather than just the individuals. The closest thing is the marriage event (that’s what creates a family), but I haven’t seen any software that lets you treat the family as a distinct unit rather than as a linking together of various individuals. I want to say, “This family was Methodist,” or “This family lived in Riverton for five years, then moved to Georgia for the next thirty years.” I’ve added an example of what I’m envisioning to the Sandbox. You’d be able to click on the family as a whole and edit it. The advantage of something like this is that you can see in pedigree form most of the information on a family group record, in a much more compact format (more families per page). Judging by this test, you’d probably only be able to show three generations per page before it got full vertically.

Oh, I said I’d mention alternatives to pedigrees. The cascading (”drop-line”) format is one:

(from http://www.sog.org.uk/leaflets/chart2a.gif)

I’ll see if I can figure out a nice, easy way to do something like that in HTML. I probably wouldn’t include places on a form like this, and the dates would certainly be compacted, because there isn’t a whole lot of horizontal room.

One last thought: it’s probably better to be for the charts to be more vertical than horizontal because people are used to scrolling vertically. Is scrolling good for something like this? I’ll have to give it some more thought, because I don’t think I’m making much sense today… :)

Technorati Tags: genealogy

I’ve created the Pedigree Sandbox page as a testbed for various pedigree ideas. Right now it’s just a simple table-based layout for two and three generations, at various sizes. And the code for the two-generation one is at the bottom (you can view source for the rest, though there’s not much different about it).

Here’s a two-generation layout:

And three-generation:

A little bit later today I’ll post about what I think of pedigrees (and some alternatives), which will explain the abbreviated form of the dates.

Technorati Tags: genealogy, pedigrees

At work we have a couple of projects which have leapt to the forefront of our priority list, which basically means that I won’t be able to work on Beyond at work for the next two weeks or so. But fear not, that’s what spare time is for. :) I wish I didn’t have classes this term, though, because homework’s eating up a lot of it.

Anyway, I’m looking into SOAP vs. REST for the web services part of Beyond. Looks like Google’s built on SOAP, Flickr provides both SOAP and REST interfaces, and Ruby on Rails seems to favor SOAP as well. The general feeling I’ve gotten from reading blog posts and articles about the debate is that SOAP is more complicated. What I’ve seen of REST certainly was simpler. I’ll look into it some more and see if it would be worth my time to support both, like Flickr. Anyway, once I get some time I’ll try to cook up a little test app to make sure I understand how web services work, sending XML back and forth like tennis players at Wimbledon.

Technorati Tags: SOAP, REST, Google, Flickr, Ruby on Rails, XML

Five minutes ago I got an e-mail from one of the genealogy lists I’m on (for my Crowder surname), and it looks like the person is doing research in the same area I am. So I started a reply, and then when I got to the point where I was going to describe my line there (e.g., John Franklin Crowder b. 1887, William Crowder b. 1809, etc.), I realized I couldn’t remember some of it. No big surprise there. :) And I wanted to open PAF to see what I had, but I’m on my Mac and I couldn’t. My next gut instinct was to open a new tab in Firefox and view my genealogy in Beyond. Easy, quick, and portable.

Too bad it’s not quite there yet. :) Yet another motivation to press onward…