Introducing the Person Record

We are excited to introduce the Person record to AJHS Collections.  

The person record is different than other record types as it is an aggregation and linkage of existing records in our database.  

At a high level, the person record were first created from data in our burial records, and then much effort was spent linking the person record to Marriage, Military and Parliamentarian records.  The Person record presents biographical data gathered from those underlying records such as birth date and birth city, and lists the lifecycle events in a timeline.

Let’s dive into an example with Nathan Goldberg.

As you can see on Nathan’s person record, we have a burial, military and marriage record.    Each are listed in the timeline and all data links to the underlying record as sources.  Think of the person record as a layer on top of our underlying data, tying together data that was previously siloed in separate databases.   Note that record types such as burials, marriages and military can still be accessed independently.

Aggregating biographical data enables searching people by birth places, including a browsable map showing all birth places and associated data filtered by country.  Take a look at what a map of all the birth places!

There was much diligent work and effort was spent creating linkages between the various databases. All attempts were made to ensure accuracy. On each record is an opportunity to suggest additions or edits.

While the person record features data found in the underlying records, there are instances where the data in an underlying record may differ from the person record. Examples include:

• • Place names are standardised to the currently recognised name. For example, a marriage record may list Lwów, Poland as a birthplace, but the associated person record will have the current name and country as Lviv, Ukraine.
  • A person may have different information in various records, such as a different birth country in their burial and marriage records. In these instances, the burial record takes precedence.
• Data was accessed from an additional reliable source (e.g. journal article, book)

This is the first release for the person record; we hope to add new features and data in the future.