On 30 May 2017 at 00:11 Dan Koehl <dan.koehl@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Michael, thanks again for your question and request. I hope that more members of this list will share their thoughts about this.

I guess no one on the list were so ready for this kind of question, we have sort of moved slowly towards a moment when we think we are so many that we can start to look into next step, so far we were just discussing and discussing.

Not crossposted.  If I didn't reply immediately, it is because I don't currently have much time to contribute, as well as not being competent as a developer.

I have encountered several views on genealogy and Wikimedia, of which two are (a) we need a separate genealogy project, and (b) Wikidata can handle enough salient genealogical facts. Having (c) we need a historical project which would include well-referenced genealogy and which will be close to Wikidata is certainly a useful formulation; and we apparently have such a project, though not in the Wikimedia family.

So I approve. One reason to broaden the scope could be to include information about land holdings, which until about a century ago was a major part of family history. So there is some point, indeed.

Actual practice on Wikidata does include working, via mix'n'match tool, with digital humanities projects such as Stanford's Kindred Britain, http://kindred.stanford.edu/ . I find that site to be reliable on relationships, not always on vital dates. I would encourage discussion of this area to see integration of Wikimedia round Wikidata, and "holding areas" of non-Wikimedia projects around Wikidata, as two sides of a coin. 

Charles