[Foundation-l] Rodovid.org, family tree wiki, wishes to become a wiki project

[Ray Saintonge]

Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> Having already been involved with several massive volunteer
>
>transcription efforts, including some that transcribe antique manuscript 
>records for old hand-written records of the sort you are discussing, I 
>think it is something not only possible but very likely to happen.  This 
>is really nothing different than what is happening right now with the 
>Distributed Proofreader project, if you want to give an example of a 
>group of complete volunteers working over the internet and skattered 
>across many countries.  Those volunteer transcription efforts I 
>participated included the transcribing of all of the records for Ellis 
>Island, as well as participation in transcribing the 1880 United States 
>Census... neither one of those were exactly trivial and wasn't just 
>microfilms but instead some very high resolution images sent 
>electronically (for current efforts).  My wife was involved with some 
>early 19th Century church records from Lousiana... all of them hand 
>written as well.  The current standard is a monochrome TIFF images, but 
>other data formats certainly could be used.  This isn't decades from 
>now, but something that is currently happening.  Software can even be 
>written to do some futher data processing to help clean up the image for 
>identification purposes... like trying to get that pesky little letter 
>you might think is an "o" but it could be an "a" or even an "e".
>
I'm afraid that where this kind of ambiguity arises it is usually best 
not to attempt to resolve it unless your arguments are very convincing.  
Spelling in many of these old documents was atrocious.  In many cases 
the affected individuals did not know how to read or write, and the 
local clergyman's spelling of entries into the parish records was 
scarcely more than educated guesswork.  My wife is from Quebec and her 
family name is Guénard; another branch of the family ended up in Wyoming 
in the mid-19th century.where the name became Guinard.  Misreading an 
accent on an "e" for the dot on an "i" is perfectly understandable for 
some handwritings, or where a person has never heard of diacritics.  I 
would be very hesitant to have software resolve these issues.

>As far as the reilability, I've used both original records and the 
>scanned TIFFs, and frankly I think the scanned images are even better 
>than the original documents in terms of clarity of trying to decyper 
>what is there.  The originals are still valuable, and can be refered to 
>by a professional researcher, but the need isn't really there for the 
>most part.
>
That's mostly right.  Photographic techniques can help to bring out the 
contrast between the writing and its physical background.

>Now it would be necessary for even more software changes to be made to a 
>project like this, but it is possible to do some very exacting 
>geneological research about people who are not even necessarily your 
>ancestors.  As usual, citations are very important for this kind of 
>research, and the amount of original material that is available would 
>amaze you that can be considered a primary source.  What makes this kind 
>of research interesting is that it has a very personal connection to the 
>individual doing the research.  You would be surprised at how many 
>people would be willing to volunteer to help others out in getting some 
>of this genolgical research.
>
I agree.  It is a community that very much understands the importance of 
mutual help.  If I am seeking a small bit of information from a far away 
community that would be impractical for me to visit I can easily find a 
local person to help.  There may be nothing useful that I can do for my 
helper in return, but I should be ready to help some other stranger when 
the occasion arises.

>One other thing to note is that geneolgists are loaded with money that 
>they are willing to spend on worthy research projects.  They tend to be 
>people at the twilight years of their life and usually retired.  Not 
>everybody has the money, but enough do that some incredible waste of 
>money is done.
>
There are many commercial enterprises that just love seniors.  They may 
provide one or two pages of easy research, append it to a stack of 
potboiler material, and charge a big fee.

>Or more to the point, I think that starting a geneology project is 
>actually going to be a significant source of revenue for the Wikimedia 
>Foundation rather than being a drag on the resources.  And a geneology 
>database increases significantly in value as it grows.  I can't say what 
>the critical number would be, but having over a million names would 
>certainly be a significant milestone to make any project, and people 
>have paid some large amounts of money ($1,000's) for much smaller 
>databases that might have some information they are looking for, or are 
>even willing to do international travel just to get a few additional 
>names and references.
>
Probabably so, and by charging very modest fees at that.  The question 
to ask then, given the massive number of genealogical websites out 
there, what can we do that will make our site more desirable than all 
the others.

Ec