Daniel Shakespeare (Freelance programmer, DE): Interactive Genealogy Explorer. Visualization of migration of ancestors and relatives co:op-READ-Convention Marburg Technology meets Scholarship, or how Handwritten Text Recognition will Revolutionize Access to Archival Collections. With a special focus on biographical data in archives Hessian State Archives Marburg Friedrichsplatz 15, D - 35037 Marburg 19-21 January 2016

1. Interactive Genealogy Explorer
Visualization of Migration of Ancestors and Relatives
Presented at: Technology meets Scholarship, or how Handwritten Text Recognition
will Revolutionize Access to Archival Collections
Hessisches Landesarchiv Marburg · 21 January 2016 · Daniel Shakespear

2. Introduction and background
Genealogies have been visualized in various ways, appropriate for particular data
sets and observations. Nearly all represent time by generations rather than
actual years, and until recently, few showed any geographic data.
http://www.scifres.com/2010/01/genealogy-visualizations/
http://www.aviz.fr/geneaquilts/
http://infosthetics.com/archives/2006/07/l
argescale_genealogical_history.html
http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogs
pot.de/2013/10/tech-tuesday-
rootsmappercom-ya-this-is.html?spref=fb
Rootsmapper

3. Motivation and starting point
Existing genealogy software (2011) provided
interesting but limited geographical display of
genealogical information
Images: My Heritage Family
Tree Builder, ver. 7.0
Locations have linked
information, but no visual
time context or connection
to other events or people
Typical consumer genealogy software
Each person’s life is illustrated by a colored
tube tracing events in chronological
order. The color and altitude correspond to
the date of the events, and each event is
plotted above the globe where it occurred.
Interactive Genealogy Explorer
Vision and goal: interactive 3D
genealogy visualization, based on
GEDCOM data

4. Technical process: Overview
Genealogy information is entered using standard consumer software
(here, My Heritage Family Tree Builder) and exported to a GEDCOM file
Events with date
and location added
where known
„Lifelines“ for individuals are parametrically generated by Google
SketchUp using Ruby script and HTML/Javascript code
Interactive Genealogy Viewer (HTML/Javascript) is then used in a web
browser to interactively portray lifelines on a Google Earth globe

5. CAD
Google SketchUp
WEB BROWSER
Internet Explorer
Google Earth Plugin
LOCAL WEBSERVER
Abyss
GEOMETRY
CALCULATOR
GeneIn.rb
LOCATION LOOK-UP
www.geonames.org
GENERATOR UI
GeneToGraph
GEOGRAPHIC DATA
Google Earth
VIEWER UI
GeneToGraphView
GEOMETRY GENERATION
INTERACTIVE VISUALIZATION
LOCAL APPLICATIONS WEB SERVICES /
EXTERNAL CODE
IGE CODE MODULES
Available upon request
RUBY CSV FILE CODE
CSV.RB
IGE applications, code and web services
Copyright (C) 2000-2004 NAKAMURA,
Hiroshi <nakahiro@sarion.co.jp>

6. Generation of “lifelines”: SketchUp
Select GEDCOM file
Options for
individual selection
Perform latitude/
longitude lookups
Generate list for
SketchUp
Lifeline generated automatically for each
selected person and stored for web server

7. Interactive Genealogy Explorer GUI
Interaction controls | Selection controlsGoogle Earth Plug-In
View and navigate with basic Google Earth controls Search for and select individuals to show, or
plot connections between related individuals
Go directly to events, show details on the
globe, „fly“ from event to event, change to
children / parents / spouse, etc.

8. Resulting visualization: Selected data

9. Resulting visualization: All data

10. Complete path: Daniel Shakespear to
Dorothy Shakespear

11. Example: Highlights of Richmond Campbell Shakespear
The video linked below shows the user clicking on an event and then stepping
through selected events in the life of Richmond Campbell Shakespear. At the birth of
his son Talbot Powney Shakespear, the user switches to following Talbot’s life line.

12. Initial results and issues
Discernibility issue when many people or events are close by
• Improved by “spiraling” nearby events
Limited interactivity (lifelines not clickable)
• Improved by adding clickable Google Earth Placemarks with
flag icons and persons’ initials, in space, by each event

13. Initial results and issues
Initial lack of perspective on time and location
• Time not easily discernible from the height of a lifeline: Significantly
improved with use of color to indicate dates rather than last names or
random sequence
• Location on globe not clear unless viewing event with earth directly below
(perpendicular): improved with use of lines from events to surface

14. Example connection: David Cameron to
William Makepeace Thackeray
This image shows some of the limitations of the visualization when numerous people
come from one area. Colors and spacing help differentiate, to some extent.

15. Comparisons to other visualizations
Comparison to traditional trees and similar generation-based charts
• Lineage is easier to read in a traditional diagram since it is generation-based
and does not depict location or non-genealogical events. However, traditional
charts have very limited interactivity, and do not depict time linearly
Compared to Rootsmapper
• Rootsmapper (launched Fall 2013) has the advantage that it offers a simpler
generation process with no local software or webserver required
• The resulting visualization is limited in content (no names or events, no dates),
and does not directly reflect time (colors indicate gender)
• As it is two-dimensional, this visualization could get cluttered when displaying
a larger set of people
http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogs
pot.de/2013/10/tech-tuesday-
rootsmappercom-ya-this-is.html?spref=fb
http://blog.rootsmapper.com/

16. Observations and personal learnings
The IGE visualization highlighted the extensive migration between
England and India, and the timing of my ancestors’ arrivals in the US
The visualization also helped me place various events among ancestors
and relatives better in time and space
• Realized that my brother lived in California near a distant relative (3rd
cousin) with whom we had no contact, in the early 1990s
Others who have seen or used the tool generally find the visualization
more interesting and engaging than traditional trees and maps.
Two paths from India to the US in the 19th
century: the connection between Michael
Shakespear and Donald Helmey
From 1975 until 1995, the two lived a little
over 100 km apart

17. Limitations
• As with any visualized data, care must be taken to assess any
conclusions against the completeness of the input data
• Results not very interesting for genealogies of families with
minimal migration
• Can only plot events in the GEDCOM file which have
understandable dates and places (resulting lifelines are
incomplete if dates or places missing)
• Visualization may be accurate geographically, but Google
Earth shows nations and borders in their current state, not
accounting for earlier divisions (e.g. Prussia)

18. Limitations
Technical issues - Google Earth Plug-In:
• Limitations in interaction and requires a web server to load
data (unnecessarily complex)
• Plug-In has been deprecated and no replacement from
Google is forthcoming – investigating rewriting the code
for Cesium (also provides additional features)
Open issues and further development:
• Consolidation into a one-step solution
• Elimination of need for local web server if possible
• Improved presentation, features and user friendliness
• Parsing additional types of GEDCOM events and
relationships

19. To make it easier to study certain times in history, a
translucent, scalable globe with time-appropriate maps
could be developed
• This would visualize a snapshot in time, showing the actual
geopolitical borders as they were
• It would also highlight the people alive at that time (newer events
would be visible but dimmed inside the translucent globe)
• This would require a different source for globe data, as the Google
Earth Plug-In is not able to render scalable dynamic objects
Further ideas: Genealogy application

20. Related concept: visualizing war
Another possible application would be to plot battles and
military movements in a traditional war
• This would provide a 3D overview of the fundamental events and
movements
• Troops and/or weaponry could be quantified by the size of the tubes
• Impact of a battle on each army would be indicated then by the
change in size of the tube
• A translucent, map which could be set to any altitude (time) with the
corresponding fronts and borders shown would give a snapshot in
time at any desired phase of the war (here a flat map, rather than a
globe, would likely be appropriate)

21. A larger-scale application could be used to graphically show the progression of
migration over time (e.g. potato famine, or migration of early ancestor groups out of
Africa). In this case, the size of the shape at a given height would correlate to
population at a given time.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spreading_homo_sapiens_la.svg
The map above shows when homo sapiens arrived in various areas over time. A 3D version with
time as the third axis, would allow the depiction of populations as shapes spreading out in space
and time, and if generated for all three species, provide a sense of when and where they
interacted. An ambitious programmer could generate dynamic “sections” or shapes, to highlight
conditions at a point in time.
Such an approach could be used to track and visualize the spread of languages,
diseases, ideas, or anything which permeates our planet and its people.
Related concept: visualizing mass migration

22. BACKUP

23. ADDITIONAL LINKS
Project on Bēhance https://www.behance.net/gallery/22589523/Interactive-Genealogy-Explorer
Video: close spin https://youtu.be/S68HV1ksqU4
"Interactive Genealogy Explorer: Visualization of Migration of Ancestors and Relatives."
Proceedings of the First Conference on Biographical Data in a Digital World 2015.
Amsterdam. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1399/paper15.pdf