This project contains tools and examples for parsing data dumps from WeRelate.org. The data dumps are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

Steps

1. Download this project. Make sure you have java and maven.
2. Download the latest data dump from https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/public.werelate.org/pages.xml.gz or http://public.werelate.org/pages.xml.gz.
3. Look at the examples in src/main/java/org/folg/werelatedata/examples.
4. Extend one of the examples or add your own.
5. Build using maven: mvn install
6. Run using maven: `mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass= -Dexec.args=""

Notes

I haven't documented the XML structure of each page. You can usually figure this out by doing a diff between revisions in the page history, but I know it's a pain. I'll document it eventually, but if there's a particular namespace that you'd like me to document sooner rather than later, please let me know.

Writing bots to update pages on WeRelate

If you want to write a bot to update pages on WeRelate, take a look at AddFhlcIdToPlaces or DeletePages for examples. Once you've written the script and have tested it on a few pages, logging in with your username and password, submit a pull request so I can take a look at your script. If it looks good, I'll give you a "bot" account that you can use for mass updates.

Other projects

Check out other genealogy projects