The Ontology of Genealogy

First, an explanation so you can calibrate or discard the following comments.  Those who tend to be engineers find that the label is much more than vocational.  It affects one's world view, and makes the engineer want to understand how things work. With treatment, one may be able to surmount these difficulties, but first one must admit there is a problem.  Not having done so, please bear with me.

So why is it Genealogy and not Geneology?  Seems like it fits nicely into a classification with all the other “ologies.”  Perhaps an artifact of the thoroughly bastardized English language? More an analogy than an ontology?  Blame the Greeks.

Regardless, considering ancestry, there is only one database, which is all the people in the world, ever.  Just one yet-to-be-fully-populated database. One finite, but expanding, database.

A quick scan of the internet, repository for all misinformation and some good stuff, yields a figure of 108 Billion souls on earth from 50,000 BC.  Of course, that assumes that you believe in souls, and not in reincarnation, and that the hand of God did not create Earth relatively recently.

At least for the purposes of this discussion, we don’t really care.  This is all about unique and somewhat more recent humans.

One unique and somewhat more recent human.

So what’s the cutoff?  50,000 or 10,000 BC is irrelevant.  Too far back for practical use.

Let’s use 1 C.E., which is the same as 1 A.D.  Common Era or Anno Domini. Once again, who cares about the nomenclature?  It’s the same year, no matter what terms you use to describe it. A little over 2000 years ago.  A long time gone. Backward into the mists of time well before most preserved spotty records of “who” and “when” began.

46 Billion -  That’s the number the Population Reference Bureau (PRB - They count people) quotes as being the total number of humans on the planet since year 1. Kinda shoots the popular old internet adage that “There are more people alive now than total for the rest of time.”  Please, check out the PRB website to get a feel for the assumptions used, but clearly, the number is at least Carl Sagan’s “billions and billions.” (Yeah, that misquote came from the internet.)

Let’s put the number in perspective.  In 2014, Shazam, the music recognition service, reported that they could identify 15 Billion songs.  Certainly, that number is much higher today.

Yes, this app.

No, not this upcoming movie.
Do you think they'll be sending a check for this bit of promotion?

The point is that in the age of big data, 46 Billion is not an insurmountable number.  It is possible to have a database including every person alive since the year 1. Manageable, even.  Of course, anyone who has ever delved into filling even a few of those spots in the database knows that it might be a little more difficult than doing analysis of mathematical representations of audio waveforms.  And you can’t download your relative even if you do identify him. Or her. And she is usually a lot more difficult to identify than he.

But it would be interesting have visibility into as much of the database as practical.

Going through the numbers, start with 2 parents, then 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents and so on.  After 20 generations, you’re related to over one million people, assuming no inbreeding. So for most of us, at least 500,000 relatives.  Less if you happen to have the misfortune of royal blood.  So conservatively assuming 25 years per generation, this all happens within the space of 500 years.

One Father, Two Grandfathers, and one of 4 Great-Grandfathers.

Even if you have a database with all the names and the connections between them, it would only be moderately interesting.  Yeah, it’s great to know that a distant relative is so-and-so, but the name of the person and relationship are not enough. Pretty much just a data point, they’re not terribly interesting without some embellishment.  Stories, recipes, photos, military records, published articles, awards, jail terms, diseases, lottery wins, bankruptcy proceedings, substance abuses, and so on are necessary to make a past life relevant to your own.

For the most part, we only really know about the wealthy and powerful, because they were usually the ones who left the best traces.  So often we “cherry-pick” to determine how we are related to these notables. Ancestor came to the New World with the other 101 people on the Mayflower?  You may be a direct descendent, just like tens of millions of others, but that lineage is probably less than 0.0002% of your 500 years of gene mixing. Not particularly comprehensive.

Maybe not comprehensive, but pretty cool, nonetheless.

But the limited look backward does not need to be perpetuated.  You and yours can compile the database for your lineage not only in the past but also in the present and for the future.  You progeny can know you and yours in a much more comprehensive fashion. And compiling these records is getting easier every day, since we’re being watched and documented all the time.  It’s 34 years past 1984!

With all this data being acquired, where do all these records belong?  Who should hold your data? The Mormons? Google? Ancestry DNA? Certainly!  These and others all have pieces of the puzzle that will help immeasurably. And don’t forget to contact that helpful Nigerian Prince.  He always wants to share.

Many sources will help populate your family database, which of course, will be in the care of your family.  With the distributed web 3.0, multiple members of your own clan can store relevant data, redundantly and safely.  Links to those ancestors outside of immediate interest can be provided, so that you can link up with other families maintaining their own portions of the whole to get a bigger picture.  And they with yours.

Imperfect?  Sure. But the redundancy inherent in families can be used to provide multiple storage sites for duplicate relevant data so that the chances of loss are low.  And the incentive for maintaining the data rests with those who can most benefit. Contribute as you learn. Repeat this over and over again and the single database of all the people in the world is created by keeping the good stuff about one’s lineage, past and present, and the links that connect to others.

So it’s time to find a bunch of other engineers (let’s find some capable ones) and folks with money (lots of it!) so we can provide you and yours with those little gizmos that keep your family history safe and sound!

Looks like one of those capable engineers!

Or maybe just search the internet to see who has already done the deed.  And get an anti-gravity machine while we’re at it.