Distributed Family Tree Project

Our goal is to establish the Distributed Family Tree, an open network of genealogical data and metadata. The big idea is that we can combine all available genealogical information on the Internet into a single distributed network-a single family tree.

Enter Genesis, the current focus of effort. Genesis is a software research assistant whose purpose is to make finding genealogical data on the Internet a lot easier. As information is found, Genesis automatically analyzes and correlates it to connect what are now isolated family trees into one distributed network. Based on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform, Genesis is fully extensible through a powerful plug-in system.

We are currently looking for students who want to help push the envelope of computer-assisted genealogy. If you are up for a challenge and want to make a big, positive impact, become a contributor to the DFT project!

The quickest way to see what's going on is to download Genesis and try it out for yourself. You might also try perusing the research blog. Finally, if you're looking for a dry read you can take a look at the thesis proposal that started it all.

Here are just a handful of the sub-projects that we need students to head up:

GEDCOM Import/Export
Genesis is currently able to communicate with PhpGedView sites through a web service API that exchanges data in the GEDCOM format. In order to fully take advantage of this, we need to implement a robust GEDCOM import/export system.
Individual and Pedigree Views
Genesis is already capable of storing genealogical data, but does not have an intuitive user interface for navigating it. We would like to implement both a basic individual and pedigree view, as well as other common and not-so-common genealogy views (such as circle diagrams and timeline charts).
Additional Agents
So far we have implemented only one agent: PGVAgent, which searches PhpGedView websites. There are hundreds of other genealogy systems and databases out there, and the more we can connect to the better!
Valhalla
We are currently discussing with the Verein für Computergenealogie (Society for Computer Genealogy) the possibility of producing server software which can store and serve genealogical data according to the DFT data model. This software will expose a web service API for both retrieval and update functions.

We're also very open to the possibility of any other sub-projects that you think would make this effort more successful!

If you are interested in becoming a contributor or have any questions, please contact us:

Hilton Campbell (Project Lead)
Dr. David Embley (Sponsor)
3332 TMCB

Distributed Family Tree Project

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