=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1399/paper15
|storemode=property
|title=Interactive Genealogy Explorer: Visualization of Migration of Ancestors and Relatives
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1399/paper15.pdf
|volume=Vol-1399
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/bd/Shakespear15
}}
==Interactive Genealogy Explorer: Visualization of Migration of Ancestors and Relatives==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1399/paper15.pdf
Interactive Genealogy Explorer: Visualization of Migration of Ancestors and
Relatives
Daniel Shakespear
Independent Programmer
Munich, Germany
E-mail: daniel.shakespear@gmail.com
Abstract
An interactive, three-dimensional graphic interface was conceived and developed, to illustrate and enable exploration of events
recorded in a genealogy. The resulting visualization provides a colorful and intuitive view of migrations, as well as plotting the
biographical data for individuals in the genealogy. Users can quickly highlight the connections between people, get a perspective on
which persons lived in similar eras, or trace the life events of any person in the genealogy.
The events of individuals’ lives are plotted as colored lines above the backdrop of a globe (Google Earth), tracking the life and travels
of the person. The date of each event determines the altitude of the line at the event location, and the lines are colored corresponding to
the date of birth of each individual. The user can manipulate the view manually, or cycle through the events in the individual's life. One
lifeline or up to hundreds can be shown (for example, chosen by date, name, ancestors, descendants, connection between two
individuals, etc.), to give a sense of the connections between people, and provide a visual overview of migrations and movements.
Keywords: visualizing biographical data, automatic biography generation, visualizing genealogies, Google Earth, Google SketchUp
1. Background
Origin has long been important to individuals and cultures
across the world. Whether it be the lineages described in
the Bible, the peerage system and countless other
mechanisms of hereditary power transfer in Europe, or the
massive genealogy of Confucius (first published in 1054
AD, and most recently updated in 2009, spanning 2500
years and more than two million members), pedigree has
helped establish identity and authority in societies
through much of recorded history.
Figure 1: Traditional family tree2
Even in the United States, where birthright has arguably
played a lesser role in determining status, genealogy has a
long and steady history of interest. Individuals’
fascination with the age-old question of provenance has
flourished in the internet era. In 2005, a survey indicated
that 73 percent of respondents were interested in
researching their family trees, an increase of 13
percentage points in only five years (Weil, 2013).
Between the online availability of mass quantities of
genealogical data, and the development of user-friendly
software (a popular rating website counted 906 genealogy
application as of late June 2015)1, professionals and
laypersons have unprecedented possibilities to explore
ancestry and kinship.
Figure 2: Radial family tree3
Over the years, genealogies have been visualized in
various ways, each with advantages and disadvantages as The traditional family tree diagram can be extended with
a function of the data set and the intended interpretation. siblings (Figure 3) for a comprehensive view of a group of
The classic family tree and (Figure 1) is well-suited to individuals and families. The resulting amorphous shape
show the heritage of an individual. Typically, parents and lacks the symmetry of the simpler, individual-focused
direct ancestors are the primary focus, not siblings. A charts, but enables a broader range of connections and
radial chart can also be used, with one generation plotted relations to be portrayed. The more-complex GeneQuilt
per ring (Figure 2). This provides a more-compact view (Figure 4) displays this sort of information in a horizontal
which is still focused on the central individual. 1 http://www.gensoftreviews.com/index.php accessed 28 June 2015
2 http://www.scifres.com/2010/01/genealogy-visualizations accessed 27 May 2015
3 ibid.
94
format, and is suitable for complex family relations
(multiple spouses, intermarriage, etc.). The interpretation
of this chart is not, however, as immediately clear to the
new observer as that of a traditional chart.
Figure 3: Traditional tree with multiple parallel families1 Figure 5: RootsMapper3
2. Concept
While inputting a genealogy of several generations of his
family, the author realized that much information about
the individuals was not readily visualized by the existing
tools. A three-dimensional, interactive illustration of the
lives and events of the people was envisioned. Ideally, the
visualization would make it possible to grasp the time and
location of the people and event shown, along with their
Figure 4: GeneQuilt2 connections to each other. It would serve the purpose of
finding and graphing the connection between related
These traditional visualizations share several common persons. Finally, it would also enable the user to explore
traits: they are all two-dimensional, generation-based (an events beyond the normal scope of a genealogy tree, such
individual’s placement is determined by their generation, as journeys, accomplishments, occupations and the like,
not their year of birth), and limited to showing events and give a sense of chronological time to the data (not
births, unions and (when indicated) deaths. only generational increments).
More recently, consumer software for genealogy The visualization that was developed, the Interactive
generation has enabled entering additional details of Genealogy Explorer, plots events of selected individuals’
individuals’ lives, and also geographic information about lives as colored lines above the backdrop of a globe
their life events. The de-facto industry file standard (Google Earth). The date of each event determines the
GEDCOM (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day altitude of the line at the event location, and the lines are
Saints, 1995) supports the storage, importing and colored corresponding to the date of birth of each
exporting of this information as well, enabling users to individual. The user can move the view around manually
develop and share genealogies with much richer detail (exactly as in Google Earth), or cycle through the events
than traditional charts provide. This information can be in the individual's life. For each event, a short description
displayed by the software as a list of events, or a map of is shown, and the user can zoom in to see the location in
locations. detail. Various methods of selecting individuals,
navigating through the genealogy, and showing paths
A new project developed in the last two years, between persons are available for interactive exploration.
RootsMapper, takes this a step further, showing migration
of individuals as lines above a map (Figure 5). This is one
of the few examples of a genealogical visualization which
also illustrates geographical relationships.
1 http://infosthetics.com/archives/2006/07/largescale_genealogical_history.html accessed 27
May 2015
2 http://www.aviz.fr/geneaquilts accessed 27 May 2015
3 http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.de/2013/10/tech-tuesday-rootsmappercom-
ya-this-is.html?spref=fb accessed 27 May 2015
95
3. Initial Technical Implementation stopping to read events in the individuals’ lives, or
To display a genealogy, the user first enters the data for zooming in to see the town where an event took place. The
the individuals using standard consumer software / Interactive Genealogy Explorer also generates clickable
freeware capable of outputting data in the GEDCOM placemarks in space near the description for each event,
format, such as My Heritage Family Tree Builder. By the allowing the user to click on an event and go directly to it.
nature of the visualization, events to be plotted require a
date and location in order to be positioned. Once the 4. Development and Refinement
genealogy is complete, the data is exported to a After developing an initial visualization in early 2012, a
GEDCOM format file. number of improvements were made. Initially, color was
not used to indicate time, but rather was selected from a
Once the GEDCOM file is available, the visualization is set defined in the code. Only the altitude of an event
created in two steps, using commercial freeware, and graphically indicated its timing. It was quickly clear,
author-developed applications. An overview of the though, that altitude is difficult to assess by eye,
applications and code modules is found in Figure 6. especially in a spherical coordinate system such as a
globe’s. In order to enhance the perception of time, the
3.1 Geometry Generation color of an individual’s lifeline was then selected by their
The first step, shown in the upper box of Figure 6, is the date of birth (or first graphed event), using a rainbow
automated reading and interpreting of the GEDCOM file, progression (red for latest through blue for earliest
followed by the generation of the lifelines. For this task, individuals).
Google SketchUp is used, with a Ruby script geometry
calculator, and a web browser user interface. The user can A further enhancement was the addition of white lines
select which individuals to plot, along with the timescale; from the events to the surface of the globe. Analogous to
additional options are available in the Ruby script (color the discussion on altitude, it was also initially difficult to
schemes, direction of altitude which indicates time, etc.). judge location on the surface, for events plotted high in
Locations are converted to latitude/longitude using the space. The dropping lines are a very effective
geonames.org lookup service, and dates are converted improvement in this regard, and also highlight the
into altitudes. With this information, the code steps geographic proximity in the case of events which took
Google SketchUp through the generation of the place in different time periods.
individuals’ lifelines and accompanying text, and
exporting the CAD data as COLLADA files. A camera A significant limitation to interaction was the absence of a
location file is also generated, with viewpoints for each click-event from the Google Earth Plug-In when the user
event. clicks on a lifeline. Users are accustomed to being able to
click directly on symbols and get information, navigate,
3.2 Displaying the Visualization etc. Unfortunately, the Google Earth Plug-in does not
support this functionality for imported objects it is
Once the geometry is generated, the interactive
displaying, such as lifelines. It does, however, allow for
visualization is available via a web browser (code and
placemarks to be shown, and reports click events from
applications shown in the lower box of Figure 6). The
these. To enhance the interactive nature of the
Viewer UI module, written in Javascript and HTML, is
visualization, placemarks were added in space at each
opened in the browser (here, Internet Explorer) and it
event (when possible, with a flag of the nation in which
instantiates the Google Earth Plug-in to show the globe.
the event occurred). When the user clicks on the
The user then can browse through the individuals from the
placemark, the visualization flies to its associated event.
genealogy, and show one or up to hundreds of lifelines
An example showing the placemarks is in Figure 8.
over the Google Earth globe. Figure 7 shows a sample
view of one lifeline.
3.3 Navigating the Visualization
A variety of navigation methods are available. From any
individual, the user can navigate to his or her parent,
spouse, or child, and continue to explore. Alternately,
multiple life lines can be selected and shown (for
example, by date, name, ancestors, descendants,
connection between two individuals, etc.), to give a sense
of the connections between people, or to provide a visual
overview of migrations and movements.
To illustrate the connection between two individuals, the
path between them can be shown as a trail of lifelines.
The user can move from one person’s events to the next,
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Figure 6: Code modules, applications, and data flow
Figure 7: Interactive Genealogy Explorer showing the lifeline of Sir Richmond Campbell Shakespear
97
RootsMapper, released in late 2013, provides an
appealing display of basic ancestral migration. It is nicely
integrated in the framework of a consumer genealogy tool
(FamilySearch.org), and unlike the Interactive Genealogy
Explorer, it requires no local webserver. The information
displayed, however, is limited compared to the
visualization developed here, the graphic itself is
fundamentally two-dimensional, and the map lacks the
navigational possibilities of Google Earth.
The Interactive Genealogy Explorer has been used
primarily by the author (although application to other
genealogy or biographical projects is welcomed). As
such, evaluation has been limited to personal opinion, and
feedback obtained from informal demonstrations. By its
nature, the Interactive Genealogy Explorer is more
Figure 8: Clickable placemarks (flags) for events difficult to compare to traditional visualizations, as it
serves a different purpose. Initial observations show that it
Another major challenge was visual clutter. For example, provides a richer display of information about the
individuals, particularly among families with a history of
in the case of a family with multiple children, the initial
migration. Its interactive nature encourages exploration,
visualization was impossible to read, as the texts for each and the interface is fun and intuitive to users of Google
birth were plotted directly above each other. This was Earth. The visualization provides the opportunity to see
corrected by checking each event’s distance to other the places in which events took place (at least as they
plotted events. In case the event is close in time and appear today), and make discoveries about the proximity
location to an existing event, the angle of the text is of otherwise distant relatives.
incremented, resulting in a spiral appearance, and
significantly better readability, as shown in Figure 9. One example of this occurred when it was discovered that
the author’s brother had lived in California just over
100km away from a previously-unknown third cousin, for
several years. The cousin was a descendant of an
individual who migrated from India to the US in the
1800s, and whose descendants had long fallen out of
contact with the author’s branch of the family. The
visualization clearly highlighted this previously unknown
connection (Figure 10). Similarly, the visualization
helped the author discover that his current residence is not
far from that of a distant cousin, Dorothy Shakespear,
who lived recently in Italy. Figure 11 shows the entire
path from the author to Dorothy Shakespear.
Figure 9: Spiraling of names in close proximity
5. Results and Comparison to Traditional
Visualizations
Traditional two-dimensional visualizations (as shown at
the beginning of the paper) are well-suited to quickly read
lineage, as they are based on generation increments.
Visualizations which show parallel individuals (not only
one person’s direct ancestors) can be used to explore more
complex relationships (such as cousins, multiple unions,
etc.). In typical consumer genealogy software, some
degree of interactivity is enabled, to allow navigating
Figure 10: Distant cousins, related to a common ancestor
through families or finding paths between individuals.
in India, in close proximity.
Finally, traditional two-dimensional visualizations lend
themselves well to printing for books or for static display.
98
state, not accounting for different earlier political
divisions (e.g. Prussia).
Technical issues include limitations in Google Earth
Plug-In interactivity, and its requirement for a web server
to load data. In addition, the Google Earth Plug-In is due
to be deprecated in December 2015, and its replacement,
if any, is currently unknown. The visualization will likely
need to be significantly recoded to function after this time.
As of June 2015, further images and videos of the
Interactive Genealogy Explorer are located at the project
site,
https://www.behance.net/gallery/22589523/Interactive-G
enealogy-Explorer
7. Further Ideas
Figure 11: The author’s connection to Dorothy
Shakespear 7.1 Concept: Scalable Translucent Globe
To make it easier to study specific times in history, a
6. Limitations and Further Work translucent, scalable globe with time-appropriate maps
As with any visualized data, care must be taken to assess could be developed. The radius of the globe would
any conclusions within the limitations of the correspond to the time scale of the genealogy data
completeness of the input data. For example, if extensive (altitude), and the user would size the globe to correlate to
data is available about one individual or one particular a year of interest. This would illustrate the geopolitical
branch of a person’s ancestry, it draws focus to their borders as they were, and highlight the people alive at that
location and history, while the other unknown ancestors time (newer events and people would be visible, but
and their history remain invisible. This can lead to bias in dimmer inside the translucent globe). Such a feature
the impression and interpretation of an individual’s would require a different source for globe data, as the
heritage. Google Earth Plug-In is not able to render scalable
dynamic objects.
By nature of the geographical aspect of the Interactive
Genealogy Explorer, the visualization results are not as
interesting for families with minimal migration, and the 7.2 Concept: Visualizing Traditional Wars
names and events become more difficult to distinguish in Another possible application would be to plot battles and
the absence of geographic displacement. Figure 12 shows military movements in a traditional war. This would
this effect. provide a three-dimensional overview of the fundamental
events and movements of troops and weaponry. Their
relative numbers could be indicated by the size of the
tubes, and the impact of a battle on each army would be
displayed by the change in size of the tube after each
battle. 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).
7.3 Concept: Visualizing Mass Migration
A larger-scale application could be developed to
graphically show the progression of migration over time
(e.g. migration of early ancestor groups out of Africa, or
Figure 12: Connection of David Cameron to William the migration due to the 19th century Potato Famine). In
Makepeace Thackeray this case, the size of the shapes at a given height would
correlate to population at that given time. The map in
Historical changes in national borders present a challenge Figure 12 shows when Homo sapiens arrived in various
as well. The visualization shows events accurately areas over time. A three-dimensional version with time as
positioned on the globe by latitude and longitude, but the third axis, would allow the depiction of populations as
Google Earth displays nations and borders in their current shapes spreading out in space and time.
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Figure 12: Migration of Homo sapiens 1
If such shapes were generated for all three species, it
would also provide an illustration of when and where they
interacted. An ambitious programmer with the right data
could generate dynamic sections or shapes, to visualize
population sizes at a point in time.
Such an approach could also be used to track and visualize
the spread of languages, diseases, ideas, or anything
which permeates the planet and its people.
8. References
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (1995).
The GEDCOM Standard, Release 5.5. Retrieved 28
June 2015 from
https://familysearch.org/developers/docs/gedcom/gedc
om55.pdf
Weil, Francois. (2013). A History of Genealogy in
America, Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.
1 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spreading_homo_sapiens_la.svg accessed 27 May
2015
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