1. Enabling the Distributed Family Tree Thesis Proposal November 10, 2006

2. 2 There’s a lot of Genealogy on the Web Databases (records, images, results) GEDCOM files Family Websites Genealogy Wikis Cyndi’s ListWeRelate.org 262,200+ links1.3 million sources

3. 3 Nevertheless… Genealogical data is isolated, causing: Duplication of prior work Unnecessary stalls at dead ends

4. 4 Distributed Family Tree (DFT) Network of genealogical data and metadata: Machine-understandable Open Standards-based Extensible Scalable

5. 5 Obstacles Inadequate Search Interfaces Isolated Pedigrees Chicken-and-Egg Dilemma

6. 6 Plan of Attack Inadequate Search Interfaces  Natural Language Search Interface Isolated Pedigrees  Semi-automatic Lineage Linkage Chicken-and-Egg Dilemma  Real-time Data Extraction

7. 7 Thesis Statement Enable the Distributed Family Tree: 1. Graph-based data model 2. Communications protocol 3. Server software 4. Extensible client software

8. 8 Genealogy Core Data

9. 9 Genealogy Provenance Metadata

10. 10 Genealogy Trust Metadata

11. 11 Communications Protocol Query Synchronize Pingback

12. 12 Server Software Code-named Valhalla Simple data store Partitioned user accounts Restricted access to living records

13. 13 Client Software Code-named Genesis Three primary functions: Data Entry Search Inference

14. 14 Data Entry in Genesis Minimal record manager functionality Web page data extraction (using extraction ontologies from the Data Extraction Group)

15. 15 Search in Genesis Natural Language Queries (using ontology-based query processing from the Data Extraction Group) Anticipatory Search

16. 16 Inference in Genesis Manual non-destructive merges Semi-automatic lineage linkage (using record linkage from the Data Mining Lab)

17. 17 Validation Test installation of Valhalla on five servers: Distribute genealogy, provenance, and trust information Establish links Seamlessly browse Demonstrate functioning plug-ins

18. 18 Imagine the possibilities… Instant gratification Single search Accidental collaboration Deliberate collaboration Accessible anywhere, anytime

19. 19 Questions? Progress updates and pre-release software available at http://blog.nucleartoiletpaper.com/dft