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From:
Subject: [APG] Re: Name Registry?
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 16:22:59 EST


Jerry:

I think you reached the heart of the matter when you wrote:

> A globally unique identifier is basically a convenient surrogate for a set
> of real-world data (e.g. name, birth date, etc.). If that set of data is
> duplicated but you suspect two separate individuals are involved, you can
> create different identifiers for each.

What you seem to be describing is not a unique Identifier for an individual
person (who somehow would have to be distinguished from other individuals with
similar names through other identifying characteristics in order to be
assigned a unique identifier), but rather a unique identifier for a persona, as that
term is used in the Gentech Data Model--a statement or data set that includes
a name and associated data or factual information, as given in or by a
particular source.

The number, then, would not identify a particular individual or person, but
rather a set of data associated with a name from a particular source. A unique
identifier for that data set could serve a useful purpose in data exchange,
but when you consider the number of personas associated with any individual
person--the number can reach hundreds--the potential size of the registry is
staggering.

Assignment of a unique persona number would still leave to each genealogist
the judgment call on whether any given persona, whether or not uniquely
identified by number, should be attributed to a particular human person, or whether
inconsistencies among possibly related personas suggest instead the existence
of two or more different individuals to whom they should be attributed.

For most individuals living in the US since the early 1900s, their Social
Security Account Number will serve to uniquely identify them as persons. Before
that, unique identity remains problematic. Social Security has asked for full
name at birth, date and place of birth, and names of parents (and more
recently, parents' Social Security numbers) to describe and distinguish individuals
applying for Social Security account numbers. Now that it has the information
from the SS-5 application forms in a database, it would be interesting to know
how frequently different individuals have had the same date and place of
birth and names of parents, up to the time parents' Social Security numbers were
first required. That would give us some indication of the extent to which those
data items uniquely describe an individual.

Donn Devine, CG, CGI
Wilmington DE

CG, Certified Genealogist, CGI, and Certified Genealogical Instructor are
service marks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license
by board certificants after periodic evaluation, and the board name is
registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.

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