GEPS 024: Natural transcription of Records

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This was formarly GEPS 024: Certificates

Natural transcription of Records is a method for creating and storing genealogical information from a document. For example, one might create a Census Record that would allow users to enter data straight from a Census sheet. The current Census Gramplet does this now. In this GEP, the associated data would be stored in a well-defined location in the database, and in exported file formats, so that the the record not only leads to update of the data in the family tree, but allows retracing the flow of a source to the data in the family tree.

Needs

  1. A manner to create, and edit over time, a record definition
    1. See Gramps Census XML format
  2. A way to view the certificate
  3. A way to map certificate fields onto database items
  4. A way to recreate the document from the database (see Gramps Census Report)

Records themself would not be part of GEDCOM export. The data learnt from the record would be present in the family tree and would appear in GEDCOM like that.


Example Workflows

Census

  1. Find a census sheet that you would like to enter data from
  2. Select in the Records transcription Record Type Census, and Layout eg UK1871. Record Types and Layouts are predefined.
  3. Set the header data of the census
  4. Add the rows in column manner as present in the census sheet. This is literal transcription.
  5. An import function could be written for downloadable content that enters this automatic from the downloaded data
  6. Click the "Transcribe to Family Tree" button. This saves the Record to database. Gramps calculates what would be added to an empty family tree from this data, the "Proposed Transcription". The Left an empty 'Before' is shown, Right the new data (Person Objects, Census Events, Source Objects, Citation Objects, ...).
  7. The Left empty part shows drop down boxes to select possible existing Persons that could be the People in the census based on the given Name. The User can explicitly select an existing person. This updates the Right part of the window. Check boxes in the Right part are given to allow choices, eg 'Set name as alternate name', ....
  8. For every setting in the Left Part of this "Proposed Transcription", the user can give a "Reasoning", which is free text, a "Conclusion", which is also free text, and a Confidence Level.
  9. User needs to Approve the Changes
  10. On Approval, the data is stored in the family tree. The Confidence level goes to the citations. The Reasoning and Conclusion are stored in a Note of type " Analysis Document" in the citationh

Oter

Current Census Limitations

Things needed to bring the Census work up to this level of integration:

  1. If you change the way a certificate is defined, we need a way to change the data. For example, changing a column name disassociates all of the information in the database.
  2. How to handle translations?
  3. Code should be able to add items such as sources to the database
  4. Items lose their ordering

Other Connections

  • Gramps' FamilySearch API will perhaps have the ability to connect and download an entire census sheet. Consider creating the Certificate from the downloaded definition.

See also