Second Design 03
The Printed Volumes
This project is not about the already-published books. However, there is a significant revenue opportunity which can be supported by a simple piece of the data design.
Our artifact is the Table of Contents of each book. Each Table of Contents is 1-3 pages long and easily transcribed into a spreadsheet (for example). Here is an excerpt from Volume Three:
THE JOHN STRONG, JR. LINE (below is Dwight #, the person, and page number in this book):
- #3, John Strong, Jr., Page 1
- #39, Hannah Strong, Page 3
- #41, John Strong, Page 12
- …
THE ABIGAIL STRONG CHAUNCEY LINE
- #15, Abigail Strong, Page 199
- #23954, Abigail Brewer, Page 199
- #24042, Nathaniel Chauncey, III, Page 215
and so on.
In other words, the book is divided into sections. Each section has descendants of ONE person in the Langbehn Database, with ONE Dwight number applying to that whole section of the book.
This means that we can create a database (speaking loosely) which tells us, for each Dwight number, whether we have additional information on that family line.
To continue with myself as the example:
- By exploring the Langbehn Database, I discover my progenitor Joseph Barnard, #27454.
- We now provide the information, attached to the above page, that we have published additional information on the descendants of Joseph Barnard #27454 in Updates Volume Three, pages 445-477. (We derive this fact from the above-mentioned table of contents for the book.)
- I purchase Updates Volume Three from the SFAA, confidently knowing that the volume contains 33 pages of additional genealogy.
We potentially have a strong sales boost, based merely on mining our tables of contents. This works because of our classification system based on Dwight numbers.