Linked data, Irish maternity and maternal mortality, 1864-1913

Reusing legacy data: Irish historic Vital Registration data, 1864-1913

Dolores Grant and Rebecca Grant, Irish Record Linkage Project

Irish Record Linkage project 1864-1913

Irish Record Linkage is an IRC funded project running until September 2015Collaboration between the University of Limerick, the Digital Repository of Ireland at the Royal Irish Academy, and Insight@NUI Galway

Constructing a Knowledge Platform – Linked Data based on Vital Registration Data (digitised registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths) in order to answer research queries around infant and maternal mortality

The Digital Repository of IrelandDRI is a trusted digital repository for the Humanities and Social Sciences dataLinking and preserving the rich data held by Irish institutions, providing a central internet access point and multimedia toolsFocal point for the development of national guidelines and policy for digital preservation and access.

INSIGHT@NUI Galway

Insight brings together leading Irish academics from 5 of Ireland's leading research centres (DERI, CLARITY, ��CLIQUE, 4C, TRIL), in key areas of priority research including:

The Semantic Web,Sensors and the Sensor Web,Social network analysis,Decision Support and Optimization, andConnected Health.

The Linked Data ConceptA method of publishing structured data on the Web, allowing it to be connected and enriched, and facilitating linking between related resources.

Linked Data standards such as RDF allows semantic definitions to be applied to information, using statements called ‘triples’ in the form subject, predicate, object.

A key principle of Linked Data is that HTTP URIs are used to name the semantic elements of the dataset

The Linked Data Concept

The example above describes the subject (James Joyce) and his relationship (predicate) to an object (Dublin). By semantically separating the elements of the information (that James Joyce was born in Dublin) datasets stored in this way can be easily queried.

Vital Registration data: Birth, death, marriage records 1864 -1913

Digitised TIFF images of hardcopy indexes and registers

General Register Office Database which describes the digitised records and allows them to be searched

General Register Office records

Birth Records

Register TIFF Index TIFF System Pre 1900 System Post 1900 Superintendent Registrar’s District

Registrar’s District Registration district District District Union County County County Province Province Number in register Entry number Date & place of birth Year of event Date of birth, year of event Name (if any) Name Forename, Surname Forename, Surname Sex Sex Name, surname & dwelling place of father

Name & surname & maiden surname of mother

Mother’s maiden name

Rank or profession of father

Signature, qualification, and residence of informant

When Registered Returns year Returns year Returns quarter Returns quarter Signature of Registrar Name & surname & maiden surname of mother

Rank or profession of father

Signature, qualification, and residence of informant

Signature of Registrar Signature of Superintendant Registrar and date

Baptismal name if added after registration of birth and date

Stamp Number Stamp number Stamp number Volume number Returns volume number Returns volume number Page number Page number Returns page number Returns page number Stamped number Page ID 2nd Stamped

number

Index entry number Index page number

Death Records

Register TIFF Index TIFF System Superintendent Registrar’s District

Registrar’s District Registration District District District Union County County Province Number in register Date and place of death Year of event Name and surname Name Forename, Surname Sex Condition Age last birthday Age Age at death Rank, profession or occupation Certified cause of death and duration of illness

Signature, qualification and residence of informant

When registered Returns year Returns quarter Signature of Registrar Signature of Superintendant Registrar and date

Stamp number Stamp number Volume number Returns volume number Page number Page number Returns page number Stamped number Page ID 2nd Stamped number Index entry number Index page number

Marriage Records

Register TIFF Index TIFF System 1845-1901 System 1902-c.1912 Registrar’s District Registration District District District

Marriage solemnised at Parish Union County County County

Province Province Number in register Entry number

When married Year of event Year of event , Date of marriage

When registered Returns year Returns year Returns quarter Returns quarter

Name and surname Name Forename, Surname Forename, Surname Partner’s surname

Age Sex

Condition Rank or profession

Residence at the time of marriage

Father’s name and surname

Rank or profession of father

Celebrant Witnesses

Signature of Registrar Signature of Superintendant Registrar and date

Stamp Number Stamp number Stamp number Volume number Returns volume number Returns volume

number Page number Page number Returns page number Returns Page

number Stamped number Page ID Page ID 2nd Stamped number Index entry number Index entry number Index page number

Data preparation

Identifying the record fields that are necessary to maintain the archival authenticity of the records and answer the research questions:

• How many women died within 42 days following childbirth due to complications related to labour and how does that figure correspond with the official reports?

• Which women died of causes that can be attributed to maternal death, but for which no corresponding birth certificate exists?

• How did various socio-economic conditions affect maternal and infant mortality rates?

Identifying, linking and tracking people across registers

GRO Triplestore

Triplestore 2 Data Analysis

Transformation from one model to another• SPIN – SPARQL Inference• SWRL / RuleML• SPARQL Construct• …

SEPA

RATI

ON

OF

CON

CERN

S

GRO Records annotation vs. Data Analysis

<#B000-001> a irl:BirthRecord;irl:on "1900-08-08";irl:name "James";irl:mother "Mary Murphy";irl:place "Castle Road"; …

<#B010-022> a irl:BirthRecord;irl:on "1902-04-19";irl:name "Patrick";irl:mother "Mary Murphy";irl:place "Castle Road"; ...

<#B022-051> a irl:BirthRecord;irl:on "1904-09-20";irl:name "Agnes";irl:mother "Mary Murphy";irl:place “Convent Hill"; ...

<#B050-003> a irl:BirthRecord;irl:on "1905-02-18";irl:name "Michael";irl:mother "Mary Murphy";irl:place "Castle Road";...

#1 Mary Murphy

#2 Mary Murphy

#3 Mary Murphy

#4 Mary Murphy

owl:sameAs

owl:sameAsowl:sameAs

TRANSFORMATION

ONTOLOGY MATCHING

All generated are stored separately

for data analytics ...

#1 Mary Murphy

#1 Mary Murphy

#1 Mary Murphy

James Patrick Michael

1900-08-08 1902-04-19 1905-02-18

619 days 1036 days

Average sibship interval = 827.5 days

Data analysis on the generated triples

Competency questions to construct the OntologyID Competency Question

C01 Women died within 41 days after giving birth (the date of birth counted as day 1 and day 41 is included)

C02 Women died within 41 days after giving birth AND in their death certificate ‘complication 1’ is mentioned.

C03 Women died within 41 days after giving birth AND in their death certificate ‘complication 2’ is mentioned.

C04 Women having official maternal death reports including “XXXX’

C05 Women having official maternal death reports including “cause 1”

C06 Women having official maternal death reports including “cause 2 and cause 3 together”

C07 For each record in C04 find the ones with corresponding birth record (the date of death counted as day 1 and day 41 is included)

DRI Presentation

• Data security - transfer, storage and use by authorised parties

• Data protection best practice• Data formats-ensuring compliance with digital

preservation best practice• Varying levels of detail eg causes of death• Variances in record subject names and places• Place names changes over time

Data challenges

DRI Presentation

Irish Record Linkage Knowledge Platform

• Linked Data platform created from subset of Dublin records

• Prepared to allow formulation of specific research queries

• Query interface for use by historians• Potential expansion to include additional

contextualising datasets

@IRL_Project http://dri.ie/irish-record-linkage-1864-1913