Author:
Koylu Caglar,Bee Kasakoff Alice
Abstract
Population‐scale kinship networks are large‐scale social networks that encompass the familial relationships among individuals within a given population. These networks provide a representation of the complex web of connections formed through blood relationships, marriages, and other kinship bonds. Crowdsourced genealogy websites provide a platform for both amateur and professional genealogy researchers to collaboratively compile and publicly share their family trees with one another. Family tree records contain information on kinship ties such as parents, children, and spouses, and individual information such as names, birth and death places, and dates. Such information is useful to construct population‐scale networks that link individuals and families across geographic space and time. These networks stretch over many generations and across continents and make it possible to study family patterns and connections at large spatial and temporal scales to illuminate many topics such as history, demography, population change, migration, public health, genetics, and economics.