Biographical basics and family

Profile description and usage

Description & Use case

This profile provides classes and properties that describe essential aspects of a person's life (see here how to add a Person), like gender, birth, death, origine, current residence, general localisation and marriage.

Find here the profile description on OntoME.

Hint: This profile is often used together with the profiles:

• Interactions, Social Relationships and Memberships of Persons

• Professional life

• Social and legal qualities of a person

Main classes of this profile

Main classes & properties	Use cases
Gender	--> indicate the gender of a person
Birth	--> indicate birth information of a person
Death	--> indicate death information of a person
Has its origin in	--> indicate the origin of a person
Localisation	--> indicate a precise whereabouts of a person at a given moment
Social Location of an Actor	--> indicate the residence/domicile of a person
Relationship/Union	--> indicate partnerships (marriages) and link children to it (sons and daughters)
Physical Thing Life	--> use this class to indicate asserted existence of a person at a given moment in time.

Most common use cases

Add Gender to a person

Adding "types of gender"

To add types of gender (male, female...), it is best to add the entities "male" and "female" already existing in the toolbox and used by other projects. For this, click on "add gender" and "add & open" an existing gender entity on the right side:

select gender

add & open an existing gender entity

Remember that you can change the appellation of a gender (men, H, M; women, F, W), as long as the meaning of the entity does not change.

Add Birth

The birth of a person concerns both a date (time-span) and a place (Geographical Place or Construction). You can also give information about kinship via the union of the parents using the field "stemmed from".

Be careful: twins, triplets etc. are brought into life by the same Birth event.

Add Death

The death of a person concerns both a date (time-span), and either the place where the death took place (Geographical Place) or the building where a person died (Construction).

Give information on the origin of a person

If you want to add information on the origin of a person, you can follow these steps:

1) Open person card

• Open a person card.

• Select "has its origins in".

2) Choose place

• Select existing information (from other project).

or add new place

• choosing an existing place (on the right)

• or adding a new one to Geovistory (left)

Social location of an actor: current domicile/residency

Use the class 'social location of an actor' to enter information on the residency/domicile of a person (including its address):

1) open entity card

• Open entity card of a person.

• Click on add 'has social quality'.

• If several options exist, select "social location of an actor"

2) enter info

Enter the info required:

• time span of domicile if known,

• location:

  • select 'specific location' to link it to a building (address),

  • select 'generic location' to link it to a geographical place (city, village etc.).

Hint: In case you want to make clear the exact address, then link the social location to a building (construction) and name your building accordingly:

Localisation: detail the whereabouts of a person

Use the class localisation to provide the asserted whereabouts of a person at a given time in history.

Example

Otto Franz was in Berlin in 1896.

Step 1: open entity card of a person

Step 2: add information

Relationship/Union

The class relationship/union is used to give information on marriages or other forms of unions of two persons (concubinage etc., open relationship or even a one-night stand).

Hint: Family structures are defined via relationship/union of the parents. The Birth of persons is linked to the union of their parents.

Relationship/Union associates two (always two) Persons participating in a union with the field had partner. However, you can also add the information of only one partner if the other is unknown.

For each relationship/union, you can indicate a date (time-span) and a place (Geographical Place or Construction). You can also link in the birth of children that originated from this union with the field "brought into life". Note that the same relationship/union should be used to refer to all births of children of the same partners.

Important: to create unions, it is best to open the entity module on the left and chose "add union". This allows to add two partners to the union.

Step 1: select "add union"

Step 2: add partners, time span & births of children.

You can further define the types of union you deal with (marriage etc.) using the controlled vocabulary functions.

Asserted existence: Physical Thing Life

In the case where the existence of a person is asserted, but the dates of birth and death are not known, you can use the class 'physical thing life'. This allows you to indicate an asserted mention of a person in documentary archives or other sources.

You can use the definition field to clearly identify what type of mention it is. Furthermore, if wished, you can link the created entity with the source object in question.