I've exchanged e-mail with the GeneaNet guys, based on what I posted to webstaff-l a couple days ago. Here was the reply. -- =Jim Eggert EggertJ@LL.mit.edu ______________________________________________________________ Return-Path: <jlm@geneanet.org> Comments: Authenticated sender is <lemarois@mail.inforoute.cgs.fr> From: "Jacques Le Marois" <jlm@geneanet.org> Organization: http://www.geneanet.org To: Jim Eggert <EggertJ@ll.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 23:16:13 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: GeneaNet review Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.52) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 7132 Hello Jim, Hope my english isn't too bad for you...
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 14:40:41 -0500 To: admin@geneanet.org Subject: GeneaNet review From: Jim Eggert <EggertJ@LL.mit.edu>
Ok, I've take a critical look at GeneaNet. In concept it seems to be a hybrid of mostly RSL and a little GenWeb, roughly speaking. The following differences are noted from RSL: ___________________________________________________________________________ GeneaNet RSL
Dabase entries: Surname Surname Info Year range Year range Number of individuals Place/subregion/region/country Migration path Source type, one of: Ascending genealogy Descending genealogy Complete Family Genealogical library Index Surname list Miscellaneous Printed genealogy Register index (parish, ...) Contact info: web web e-mail e-mail snail mail phone fax Submission method: e-mail e-mail WWW form WWW form Submission format: GEDCOM RSL GeneaNet Retrieval method: e-mail e-mail WWW form WWW form automail FTP* Retrieval format: GeneaNet Availability: search search download* Cost: free free Size: 2,351,324 individuals circa 354,000 surnames
It's not individuals, it's surnames (for example surname/place in case of a Gedcom).
# = register a surname specially and get updates for that surname mailed automatically * = current monthly update only ___________________________________________________________________________
The main differences in information content are that GeneaNet tells you how many individuals in the database have the chosen surname, allows some short text on the surname, and gives you the type of the source. RSL gives you a migration path instead of just a single place, and allows more general contact information.
The main differences is that RSL is a surname list studied by genealogists and GeneaNet is an index of existing database: The main target of GeneaNet is to give lot's of powerful tools to search on a very large index (ie: such powerful tools are unuseful with few data) The idea is not to replace such database as RSL, but to redirect to those database: put an index of RSL on GeneaNet that redirect to RSL would be a good idea - (and give the ability to RSL submitters to have the same powerful search features on GeneaNet than a direct submitter) we'll have less work with newbies, and less redondancy on Internet. The philosophy of GeneaNet is to direct interested people to the source and to let the source decide to whom and under which terms it give away the data. We focus on existing on line database and genealogical societies, mainly parish register and genealogical library index. We also focus to improve the search features. Actually there is: - Search with multicriteria: http://www.geneanet.org/form-search-deu.html.en - Match automatically your GeneaNet index with the database: http://www.geneanet.org/form-search-member.html.en (both for individuals or genealogical societies) - Get automatically new entries by e-mail: http://www.geneanet.org/form-searchlist.html.en - Get automatically new entries by e-mail that match your own GeneaNet index: http://www.geneanet.org/form-searchlist-member.html.en The third part of our work is to make GeneaNet easier to use. Actually the system is completely automatic: you can create a 'sourcename', submit your data, update your data and destroy your data by your own.
GeneaNet allows you to submit a GEDCOM, from which a GeneaNet submission is automatically formatted. I have well-founded doubts about how well this works. I've written software that generates RSL submissions, and invariably find myself heavily editing the results due to surname spelling changes, migration complexities, missing country information, etc.
Actually the program that run on the server is not good enougth. We've built a little external application (list2gen) that perform very well the conversion: we need now to write the same in Perl language and to put it on the server. We also accept various format: Excel, DBase, Tinytafels, BK5, ... They are converted with this external application or manually. In last case, there is a program on the server (text2indi.pl) that extract automatically the names (upper case words), date, place from any text: it's in beta test.
GeneaNet apparently also extracts information from well-established databases on the Internet. Just one of these, the Ontario Cemetery Finding Aid, has over 1.1 million entries in it. Are these all counted in GeneaNet's 2.3+ million individuals?
We index only Surname/place. So it make 232,685 surnames
Another one, with 377,347 entries, is Yates Publishing's The Computerized Ancestor, a commercial outfit where you have to pay to get information. Between these two sources, you have over half of GeneaNet's database to date. Add in the 1801 Norwegian census with 115,802 entries, and the various Comp-Gen-Box databases from Uni Giessen, and you get the point that there just isn't much individual participation in GeneaNet. Yet, anyway.
The Top five "sourcename" is: 377,347 yates 300,521 1871 Ontario Census Heads of Households 232,685 ocfa 115,802 nor1801 (1801 Norway Census) 66,269 bibgen (French genealogical society)
From Comp Gen Box there is currently only 30 files indexed. We've just started indexing german ressources (Com-Gen-Box, Odessa German-Russian Genealogical Library,...)
The majority of the data came from existing database on the web (about 1/1,500,000 entries). There is also a part that came from genealogical societies: about 150/200,000 entries currently, several millions the target. Actually, for individuals the most active part is genealogists from France, Belgium and Netherlands. Jacques Ps: I saw in your homepage an interesting document: http://www.genealogy.com/eggertj/gifs/PLZ.gif Do you have the name of the subregion: not the landers, but the county under the landers. All the this county are not codified on GeneaNet.