Target Model Specification

Birth and Death of a Person

Version 2.2 (Previous versions)

At Glance

This pattern can be used to represent the information pertaining to the lifespan of a person (birth and death). It includes:

  • The date and location of the birth of a person;
  • The biological parents of a person;
  • The date and location of the death of a person;
  • The location of the remains of a person (burial place).

It pertains specifically to the vital information of persons and not to their relationships, or to the vital information of non-human agents (e.g. animals or groups) or non-living humans (e.g. human remains). As such, it does not include:

  • The adoptive parents of a person (use the Relationship pattern instead);
  • The relationship of a person to their parents (i.e. this pattern describes the biological parenthood rather than the social bond between the person and their parents) (use the Relationship pattern instead);
  • The belonging of a person to a family (use the Family Belonging pattern instead);
  • The cause of a person’s death;
  • The date and location of the birth and death of a non-human agent such as an animal or thing;
  • The location of the remains of a non-human agent such as an animal or thing (burial place).

Introduction and Context

Theoretical Background

The recording of vital statistics pertaining to the birth and death of people dates back to Antiquity when such information was used by states to determine taxation and estimate military manpower (Brumberg et al. 2012, 407). It is a statistically and culturally important part of heritage data that is often used to situate actors within larger societal and demographic trends, and is a key element of genealogy and family history research (Library and Archives Canada 2020).

Such data is useful to visualize trends in family composition, genealogical lineage, localization of actors in space and time, or national belonging (since polities can change over time, for example Yousuf Karsh was born in modern-day Turkey at the time of the Ottoman Empire (Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica n.d.)). Burial locations, in particular, can be indicative of social mores and practices surrounding death, and are increasingly recorded by players interested in genealogy or heritage data such as Wikidata (Wikidata 2021) or genealogical institutes, for example Family Search (FamilySearch 2020).

Statement of Need

It is important to keep in mind that vital information is often inconsistently or problematically recorded, and census data is heavily framed by census methodology so that any use of vital information must be heavily pondered (Hamilton 2008). For example, colonial records of Indigenous ancestry are notoriously flawed and have often either not recorded Indigenous actors, or done so using colonial methods of collecting, recording, and archiving that do not encompass the traditions and concepts deemed relevant to their ancestry by Indigenous Peoples (Devlin & Cuggy 2017; Royal British Columbia Museum 2018). Such uses of vital records should be done critically and cautiously.

Dates and places pertaining to births and deaths are not only statistically meaningful, but also crucial to the disambiguation of actors (i.e. two different people might have the same name by happenstance, or a single person might be associated to several names or spellings of a name) as they can be used to confirm someone’s identity (OCLC 2019, 4).

Because such information is commonly used by heritage institutions as well as relied upon for disambiguation purposes, it is likely to be among the most widely documented. This means that such data will predictably be subject to exchange and mobilization by several providers. Thus, interoperability with other relevant models is of importance in the development of these patterns.

This indicates a need for an identification of who was born when, where, and to whom (biological mother and father), when and where they died, as well as where their remains are located.

Description of the Pattern

This pattern is based on a modelling approach in which an event embodies the “beginning” and “ending” of the entity (in this case an instance of E21_Person).

The birth of a person is modelled as follows:

  • An instance of E21_Person is linked to an instance of E67_Birth by the property P98_brought_into_life;
  • The instance of E67_Birth is first linked to another instance of E21_Person representing the person’s biological mother using the property P96_by_mother which is linked to an instance of both E41_Appellation and E33_Linguistic_Object by the property P1_is_identified_by. From this instance, the literal value of the Mother Appellation is qualified through the property P190_has_symbolic_content;
  • Similarly, the same instance of E67_Birth is linked to another instance of E21_Person representing the person’s biological father using the property P97_from_father which is linked to an instance of both E41_Appellation and E33_Linguistic_Object by the property P1_is_identified_by. From this instance, the literal value of the Father Appellation is qualified through the property P190_has_symbolic_content;
  • The place where the birth occurred is indicated by linking the instance of E67_Birth to the Birth Place value (an instance of E53_Place) through the property P7_took_place_at;
  • The time when the birth occurred is indicated using the Temporal Bounds pattern linked to the instance of E67_Birth through the property P4_has_time-span with values extracted from the Birth Date Begin, Birth Date Begin Qualifier, Birth Date End, and Birth Date End Qualifier entry nodes.

The death of a person is modelled as follows:

  • An instance of E21_Person is linked to an instance of E69_Death by the property P100_was_death_of;
  • The place where the death occurred is indicated by linking the instance of E69_Death to the Death Place value (an instance of E53_Place) through the property P7_took_place_at;
  • To capture the moving of the deceased’s body from their last location to their final disposition place, an instance of E9_Move is linked to the instance of E53_Place representing the place where the death occurred by the property P27_moved_from, as well as linked by the property P26_moved_to to the Final Disposition Place value which is qualified by an instance of E55_Type (a specified qualifier node) labelled “Burial Place” using the property P2_has_type;
  • To indicate that the death of the person necessarily occurred before the moving of their deceased body, the instance of E69_Death is also linked to the instance of E9_Move by using the CRMarcheo property AP28_occurs_before;
  • The time when the death occurred is indicated using the Temporal Bounds pattern linked to the instance of E69_Death through the property P4_has_time-span with values extracted from the Death Date Begin, Death Date Begin Qualifier, Death Date End, and Death Date End Qualifier entry nodes.

Diagram

039_Pattern_BirthDeath_p

Examples

Example 1

Yousuf Karsh (P190_has_symbolic_content, Actor Appellation) was born on the 23 of December 1908 (P82a_begin_of_the_begin, Birth Date Begin; P82b_end_of_the_end, Birth Date End) in Mardin (Ottoman Empire) (P7_took_place_at, Birth Place) to Bahiyah Nakash (P190_has_symbolic_content, Mother Appellation) and Massih Karsh (P190_has_symbolic_content, Father Appellation). He died on the 13th of July 2002 (P82a_begin_of_the_begin, Death Date Begin; P82b_end_of_the_end, Death Date End) in Boston (MA, United States) (P7_took_place_at, Death Place) and is buried at Notre-Dame Cemetery in Ottawa (ON, Canada) (P26_moved_to, Final Disposition Place; P2_has_type, “Burial Place”) (Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica n.d).

Example 2

Emily Carr (P190_has_symbolic_content, Actor Appellation) was born on the 13th of December 1871 (P82a_begin_of_the_begin, Birth Date Begin; P82b_end_of_the_end, Birth Date End) in Victoria (BC, Canada) (P7_took_place_at, Birth Place) to Emily (Saunders) Carr (P190_has_symbolic_content, Mother Appellation) and Richard Carr (P190_has_symbolic_content, Father Appellation). She died on the 2nd of March 1945 (P82a_begin_of_the_begin, Death Date Begin; P82b_end_of_the_end, Death Date End), also in Victoria (BC, Canada) (P7_took_place_at, Death Place), and was buried at Ross Bay Cemetery (BC, Canada) (P26_moved_to, Final Disposition Place; P2_has_type, “Burial Place”) (Baldissera 2015, 4).

Example 3

David Altmejd (P190_has_symbolic_content, Actor Appellation) was born in 1974 (P82a_begin_of_the_begin, Birth Date Begin; P82b_end_of_the_end, Birth Date End) in Montreal (QC, Canada) (P7_took_place_at, Birth Place) (Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal 2015).

External Models

Entry Nodes

CIDOC CRM Entities

Discussion

Rationale

The biological filiation (i.e. biologically being the mother and father of a person) and the parentship (i.e. the social relationship the person has to their parents and vice-versa) are considered distinct in the context of the DOPHEDA model so that each type of parental filiation can be precisely and accurately recorded. The recording of parental and family interactions is modelled using the [Relationship] (/collections-model/en/target-model/current/relationship) pattern. As such, the biological lineage modelling addressed in this pattern should be employed when the goal is to document genealogical information.

The modelling of the final disposition place, and especially the use of an instance of E9_Move, is ontologically disputable. Representing the post-death move of the person (E21_Person) to their grave through an instance of E9_Move (move event) is the simplest modelling solution to the representation of the intentional moving of human remains. However, it is conceptually problematic since the remains of the dead person cannot technically be associated with an instance of E21_Person. The logic of CIDOC CRM dictates the creation of an instance of E20_Biological_Object to replace the instance of E21_Person through an instance of E81_Transformation. Otherwise, the pattern (as it currently stands) would indicate that the person was moved and buried alive. However, this longer and more precise modelling is highly complex and implies the creation of nodes that considerably weigh down the model, significantly complexify queries, and unnecessarily burden users. Because there are very few records of people being buried alive (especially as such) in heritage collections, it seems preferable to compromise on semantic preciseness and adopt a simpler solution, assuming actors will be buried while dead (see Issue #72).

Edge Cases

Example 1

The Unknown Soldier died in France as a soldier during the First World War. Their death occurred between the 3rd of October, 1914 (when the first Canadian contingent sailed for Europe) and the 11th of November, 1918 (when Canadians’ direct involvement in the fight ended), though the war ended officially with the Treaty of Versailles on the 28th of June, 1919. They were buried at the Cabaret-Rouge War Cemetery near Vimy (France) before their remains were moved in a commemorative sarcophagus in Ottawa (ON, Canada). In the DOPHEDA model, their move from their place of death to their burial place would not represent their passage in Cabaret-Rouge and only indicate a move from France (where they died between 1914 and 1918) to Canada in 2000 (Foot 2018).

Example 2

Ramses II died around 1213 BCE according to Egyptian chronology (Hornung et al. 2006, 476-478). His body was embalmed and deposited in tomb KV7 in the Valley of Kings (modern-day Egypt), but was soon moved and transferred into other tombs by Egyptian priests to protect it from looting. The body was finally uncovered in tomb TT320 in 1881 (Wikipedia 2021).

In this example, the mummy transferred, or at least discovered by archæologists, should not be considered a person (E21_Person) but rather a biological object (E20_Biological_Object) which can be moved. At the moment, this kind of transformation cannot be documented as part of the Birth and Death of a Person pattern.

Example 3

Maud Kathleen Lewis was born in her South Ohio, NS (Birth Place) childhood home to John Dowley (Father Appellation) and Agnes Dowley (Mother Appellation) (Art Gallery of Nova Scotia n.d.). In addition to documenting the municipality where she was born, an institution might want to record that “She was born in her childhood home”. The latter could be considered a Curatorial Note about Maud Kathleen Lewis. The same would apply to the death of a person happening in their childhood home.

Bibliography

Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. “Maud Lewis.” Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. n.d. https://artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/maud-lewis.

Baldissera, Lisa. Emily Carr: Life & Work. Canadian Online Art Book Project. Toronto, CA-ON: Art Canada Institute, 2015. https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/emily-carr/.

Brumberg, H. L., D. Dozor, and S. G. Golombek. “History of the Birth Certificate: From Inception to the Future of Electronic Data.” Journal of Perinatology 32, no. 6 (June 2012): 407–411. https://doi.org/10.1038/jp.2012.3.

Devlin, Stacy, and Emily Cuggy. “Settler Records, Indigenous Histories: Challenges in Indigenous Genealogical Research.” Active History (blog). December 7, 2017. https://activehistory.ca/2017/12/settler-records-indigenous-histories-challenges-in-indigenous-genealogical-research/.

Doerr, Martin, and Christian Emil Ore, eds. Definition of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model. CIDOC CRM Documentations, 7.0.1. Paris, FR-IDF: International Council of Museums (ICOM), 2020. [http://www.cidoc-crm.org/sites/default/files/CIDOC%20CRM_v.7.0.1%2018-10-2020.pdf](http://www.cidoc-crm.org/sites/default/files/CIDOC%20CRM_v.7.0.1%2018-10-2020.pdf).

Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Yousuf Karsh.” Encyclopædia Britannica. London, UK-LDN: Encyclopædia Britannica, n.d. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yousuf-Karsh.

FamilySearch. “Canada Cemeteries.” FamilySearch Wiki. April 7, 2020. https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Canada_Cemeteries.

Foot, Richard. “Canada’s Unknown Soldier.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Reprint, Toronto, CA-ON: Historica Canada, October 3, 2018 [2014]. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/unknown-soldier.

Hamilton, Michelle. “‘Anyone Not on the List Might as Well Be Dead’: Aboriginal Peoples and the Censuses of Canada, 1851–1916.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association/Revue de la Société historique du Canada 18, no. 1 (2007): 57–79. https://doi.org/10.7202/018254ar.

Hornung, Erik, Rolf Krauss, and David A. Warburton, eds. Ancient Egyptian Chronology. Leiden, NL-ZH; Boston, US-MA: Brill, 2006.

Library and Archives Canada. “Births, Marriages and Deaths Recorded in Canada.” Library and Archives Canada. September 9, 2020. https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/vital-statistics-births-marriages-deaths/births-marriages-deaths-recorded/Pages/births-marriages-deaths-recorded.aspx.

Linked.art. Linked Art Data Model. Linked.art, 2021. https://linked.art/model/index.html.

Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MACM). David Altmejd. MACM, 2015. http://staging.macm.org/en/exhibitions/david-altmejd/.

OCLC. Virtual International Authority File Guidelines. Reprint, Dublin, US-OH: OCLC, 2019 [2015]. https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/viaf/VIAF%20Guidelines.pdf.

Royal British Columbia Museum. Resources for First Nations Genealogical Research at the BC Archives. Royal British Columbia Museum, November 2018. https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/images/resources_for_first_nations_genealogical_research_at_the_bcarchives_2018.pdf.

Shadbolt, Doris. “Emily Carr.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Reprint, Toronto, CA-ON: Historica Canada, August 28, 2015 [2013]. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/emily-carr.

Skidmore, Colleen. “Yousuf Karsh.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Reprint, Toronto, CA-ON: Historica Canada, March 4, 2015 [2010]. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/yousuf-karsh.

Wikidata. “Place of Burial (P119).” Wikidata. April 9, 2021. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P119.

Wikipedia. “Ramesses II.” Wikipedia. San Francisco, US-CA: Wikipedia, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II.