CONVENTIONS

 

Label

Our convention is "Standard Spelling of Last name", "First Name" (number in Roman numerals if there are more than one person with that name) [Alternate spelling of last name if the record contains a different spelling than the standard]. Special French characters including accents and cédilles are avoided, as Gephi cannot recognize them.

• ■      An example might look like: Coupaud, Francois (ii) [Coupeaud]

 

Parish

This is the parish in which the individual is likely to have resided at the time of the record. We have used the following guidelines for determining likely residence.

• ■      For birth records: the child, parents, and siblings of the child are likely residents of the parish in which the record appears.
• ■      For marriage records: the bride is a likely resident of the parish in which the record appears.
• ■      For death records: the deceased and spouses are likely residents of the parish in which the record appears.

 

Parish Officials

We have excluded the connections of people who appear in the records only in an official capacity. These individuals include sacristans, priests, and some praticiens. If, however, an official of a particular parish signs in a non-official capacity (e.g. in another parish), this connection is included.

Literacy

We only designate those people as illiterate whom the records explicitly indicate as unable to sign.

Connections

The connections featured in the graphs on this site depict the following relationships.

• ○       Parents
• ○       Siblings
• ○       Marriage
• ○       Godparent
• ○       Signatory (of baptismal, marriage, and burial records)
• ○       Witnesses (those who were in attendance at the above events but could not sign).
• ○       Aunt/Uncle – these are used only if direct nuclear family relationships (e.g. a sibling relationship or a parent relationship) are not established.

Weighting

An edge's weight corresponds to the strength of the relationship depicted. Relationships between nuclear family members are weighted most heavily (a weight of 3). Those between godparents and godchildren are weighted 2 as are those between aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces. Signatories and witnesses are connected to the people whose records they signed with edges weighted 1. Edges with greater weighting exert a stronger attractive force between the two connected nodes.

Directionality

Some edges show direction of a relationship. These include:

• ○       Parents → Children
• ○       Aunt/uncle → Nephew/niece
• ○       Godparents → Godchildren
• ○       Signatory/witness → Primary person for whom the record was created

Some, however, are undirected

• ○       Siblings
• ○       Marriages