Library Dommeldal holds a rich collection of genealogy data from multiple heritage sources, but the records existed as isolated entries with no way for visitors to trace connections between people, events, or time periods. Finding family relationships across historical records required manual effort and specialist knowledge, limiting the library’s ability to open its collection to the public.
The Solution
Semaku built a linked data application that connects genealogy sources into a unified knowledge graph. Personal events such as births, marriages, and deaths are modelled as linked data and associated with the people involved, creating a web of relationships that can be traversed programmatically. The application presents each person’s data as an interactive timeline, showing their life events and linking them to related individuals.
The Outcome
Library visitors can now explore family trees and personal timelines directly through the application, without specialist knowledge of the underlying data. Connections between people and events that were previously invisible are now surfaced automatically, making the library’s genealogy collection significantly more accessible and engaging.
