Drawing on common genealogy metaphors, Azavea used Open Source software to develop a powerful online editor for building and maintaining mappable family trees worldwide.

Client: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI)

Challenge: When Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI) launched The Root, a daily online magazine providing commentary on the news from a variety of black perspectives, they wanted to provide users with a family tree editor and mapping application to complement the interactive genealogical section on the website. Editor-In-Chief Henry Louis Gates, Jr. had co-founded AfricanDNA.com, a DNA testing site, and saw tracing family history as a central component of The Root’s appeal.

Solution: After consulting with Azavea, WPNI elected to build the tool using primarily Open Source software in order to leave open the possibility of integrating data in multiple formats. Azavea used Flex and the yFiles graphing framework to develop a powerful interactive family tree editor that enables dynamic editing and visualization—built from scratch, but consistent with the genealogical conventions for displaying relationships between people. Users are able to select between organic and hierarchical layouts of family tree information and are able to edit information intuitively by clicking on records directly in the viewing window.

A particularly innovative portion of the site leveraged Azavea’s geographic expertise  by enabling users to display the birthplace and gravesite locations of family members on an interactive map, with markers varying to reflect type and date. To achieve this, the application integrates geocoding from Google, OpenLayers, and PostGIS. 

The application also permits users to import files in the Genealogical Data Communication (GEDCOM) format, making its sophisticated visualization and mapping components accessible to genealogy enthusiasts who have already assembled family tree data in another software package. 

Outcomes: Within a very short six-week development period, Azavea used Open Source software to complete design, debugging, and load testing of the beta version of an application in an entirely new conceptual domain— genealogical data storage and mapping. The application is available on a website that boasts an audience of approximately 325,000 unique visitors per month (via Quantcast.com).

Websites:
The Root
http://www.theroot.com/roots
http://services.theroot.com/Mappingtool/