Building a Family Genealogy website (How to build Database)

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kendall
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Building a Family Genealogy website (How to build Database)

Post by kendall »

Hello,

I am in the process of building a Family Geneology Website driven by a database...I not very good with database design and would like some advice on some design techniques for this sort of project

can anyone offer any tips on this?
maybe there are examples? (im looking at the possiblities of centering my design around the GEDCOM specs but i had no such look in reasearching this))

Kendall
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nielsene
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Post by nielsene »

Here's one thread where I gave some advice about how to design a database:

viewtopic.php?t=2996

Is this the kind of advice you're looking for?
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kendall
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Building a Family Genealogy website (How to build Database)

Post by kendall »

Nielsne,

Not really that is the obvious which i think i have tried to abide to (emphaise on trying). My thing is i need the second opion to alway make me see another side.force my self to think outside the box. so to speak.

Plus i was hoping someone had tried to build a similar project as i wanted to get the mximum benifit out of the database design.

http://www.quesnel.com/draft/

the above is the link to the demo project. While i believ to have done a good job so far i am faced with a predicerment for having to devise a proper method to have members of that family enter thier information leaving me to wonder if m database design was rite in the first place.

My database rite now is design as follows

individual
ID| firstname| middle name| last name|sex|dateofbirth|died|

perosnalinfo
ID|notes|username|password|email|

children
individualid| familyid

familes
iD | husband|wife|married|divorced|

this is as best as i could have done it using PARAMATERS BASED ON NORMAL SITUATIONS. (no adopted children, no same sex, etc..)

So far i think i have done a good job...but the difficult task im taking on now is having the members be able to add to the tree. Im only seeing a recurring isse e.g.

if im not in three i have to add my self
if my parents arent there i have to add them
and may enter my grand parents
then im thinking...what if i have a father an mother that exists but they are looged as being married to 2 different other people on the record.

I just want a model to follow and i just want some good second opinons on the approach to better be able to address this project task.

I do appriciate ALL comments, critisims and good ol fashion advice

KEndall
even stupid advice is advice enuf
[/quote]
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nielsene
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Post by nielsene »

Hmm, it sounds to me like you've done a good job designing the database. Now you have the design the application that uses the database. So I think you can transition from thinking about what to store in the database to how to use the database.

Ie start building up an API (set of functions) you'll use to deal with the database from the web-code you'll write later. This is a middle layer of the system. If you are trying to go straight from the database to the webpages I can see why it would start gett confusing.

Some things you'll probably want:
-- search for person by name
-- add new person
-- add new child
-- record marriage/death/child-birth etc

Once you have most of these the web applications, even the hierarchical problems you mention will probably be easier.
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