The Collaborative Genealogy is a web-based, data-driven graphical interface that allows a user community to collaboratively map genealogical relationships among multiple object types. Authorized community members can enter event profiles with multiple data fields and can upload any kind of data file as documentation. Publication data in generally supported formats, such as PubMed, will be automatically linked to the corresponding abstract and full-text versions of documents. Individual lineage trees can be opened for any profile. Users may also post comments on each of the profiles, and the comments will automatically be emailed to anyone subscribed to the profile. The genealogy is fully searchable at multiple levels and may also be interconnected with other genealogies, for lateral or vertical mappings. Higher level data graph visualizations also provide quantitative comparisons of relationships and documentation over time.
The Collaborative Genealogy application architecture consists of a Flash frontend that passes XML requests to Java servlets that edit query and edit a separate MySQL database. The application package is easily deployable in most server environments. I designed and developed the genealogy application in 2002-2003 with the assistance of Vince Dorie, who helped develop the Java servlets and the database.