Person

“Person” is a claim type describing basic identifying information about a person: their name, aliases and associated time ranges with them. Claims of this type are grouped together with Person Posting (describing postings to different units) which tracks the person’s career. There are also several fields in development to capture other aspects about persons.

Person: Summary of claim attributes

The table below summarizes the following dimensions of Person claims:

Attribute label: a human readable label for the attribute

Status: whether the attribute is optional or required in a claim

Data type: the sort of data that can be entered into the attribute

Key name: a standardized name that simplifies attribute use in SFM databases

Attribute label	Status	Data type	Key name
type:claim	required	string	`:claim/type`
status:meta	required	string	`:claim/statuses`
researcher:meta	required	string	`:meta/researchers`
internal_comments:meta	optional	string	`:meta/internal-comments`
citation:refs:claim	required	strings<->uuids	`:claim/citation:refs`
about_entity:ref:claim	required	string<->uuid	`:claim/about-entity:ref`
about_entity:name:qa	optional	string	`:claim/about-entity:ref`
name:annotation	optional	string	`:annotation/name`
person:names:assertion	required	string	`:assertion/person:names`
country:annotation	required	country-iso-string	`:annotation/country`
first_precise:range	optional	string-date	`:range-precise/first`
last_precise:range	optional	string-date	`:range-precise/last`
first_imprecise:range	optional	string-date	`:range-imprecise/first`
last_imprecise:range	optional	string-date	`:range-imprecise/last`
starting:range	required	YN<->bool	`:range/starting?`
ending:range	required	YN<->bool	`:range/ending?`
starting_context:range	optional	string	`:range/starting-context`
ending_context:range	optional	string	`:range/ending-context`
public_notes:meta	optional	string	`:meta/public-notes`
person:gender:assertion	draft	string	Not yet implemented
person:account_type:assertion	draft	string	Not yet implemented
person:account_id:assertion	draft	string	Not yet implemented
person:media_description:annotation	draft	string	Not yet implemented
type:entity	required	string	`:entity/type`

Person: Details of claim attributes

This section contains further information about each attribute, including descriptions, examples of use, and Guidance on use.

type:claim

Description

A field that defines what type of claim is being made.

Attribute type

Text string

Status

This attribute is required.

Key name

:claim/type

Example of use

unit, positioning, relation, person, posting, incident

Guidance on use

Entering person defines the claim and defines the relevant fields to be used in further data entry about a person. For quality assurance purposes, entering person should create an error if there is any entry for fields tied to other claim types, such as posting.

status:meta

Description

A field that classifies the data in the claim.

Attribute type

Text string

Status

This attribute is required.

Key name

:claim/statuses

Example of use

accepted, conflict, work_needed, issue

Guidance on use

Claims are marked accepted when all of the data can be entered in accordance with the guidance of this handbook. The conflict flag is used whenever a claim conflicts with another claim (or claims) and a review of citations show it to be the incorrect or false claim. A public_notes:meta should always accompany any conflict claim.

If the data itself cannot be brought into the SFM standard the flag issue should be used. Finally, if the current citations cannot establish whether a claim should be flagged as accepted or conflict then the flag work_needed should be used as additional research is needed.

researcher:meta

Description

Field for initials or other identifier of researcher who last entered data for the claim.

Attribute type

Text string

Status

This attribute is required.

Key name

:meta/researchers

Example of use

TW, Jane_Doe, G1

Guidance on use

Every researcher should use this field to mark the claims that they have entered. Anytime a researcher modifies any data for an existing claim they should update this field so that any questions can be directed to the right person and the flow of work can be better tracked.

internal_comments:meta

Description

A field for temporary comments or notes for the researcher or research team working on the claim.

Attribute type

Text string

Status

This attribute is optional.

Key name

:meta/internal-comments

Example of use

Come back to this to determine date for claim

Guidance on use

Researchers may use this field to make temporary notes or leave temporary comments intended for others in the research team about a claim. These should eventually be addressed and the field cleared by the researcher or research team. If the claim needs an explanatory note or comment to be better understood, then that should be entered in the public_notes:meta field.

citation:refs:claim

Description

Field unique 32 character code assigned to citation(s) evidencing the claim.

Attribute type

String in UUID format

Status

This attribute is required.

Key name

:claim/citation:refs

Example of use

69dba35b-2b70-47cf-bfda-f80225f652c6, 4e99308c-f9c0-49e8-b97b-14c1e7bcb99d;bedf57b2-c20b-41e3-9dcf-b7b065eaa3b7

Guidance on use

Every claim must have at least one citation to evidence the data in the claim. When two or more citations are needed to evidence a claim then a corresponding explanatory note should be entered in the public_notes:meta field. This field is for the Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) for each citation, found in the ref:source:access_point_id:admin field in the Sources sheet. When multiple citations are needed every UUID should be semi-colon separated.

about_entity:ref:claim

Description

A unique 32 character code assigned to each entity in the dataset.

Attribute type

String in UUID format

Status

This attribute is required.

Key name

:claim/about-entity:ref

Example of use

521ebf18-f161-4ac9-8c72-5a246efa0458

Guidance on use

Every entity has a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) to distinguish it from any other entity. For a person this UUID distinguishes them from any other person in the dataset. This UUID is used in other fields to tie a person to a posting or incident.

A person from one citation is never assumed to be the same person from another citation based on an exact or near match of their name. Instead the posting is used to determine whether two people with the same or similar names are the same person. For example, if a citation states “John Alfred Smith” was commander of “Police Station 1” and another states “John Smith” was the commander of “Police Station 1” they would be treated as the same person given the match of posting as well as their similar name. However, if one citation stated “John Alfred Smith” was the commander of “Police Station 2” they would not be treated as the same person as the “John Alfred Smith” who was commander of “Police Station 1” since there is no match of a posting.

Determining whether one person held multiple postings is based on some match of postings among different citations. For example, if one citation stated “John Alfred Smith” was commander of “Police Station 1” and another citation stated “J. Smith” was commander of “Police Station 3” there would be no match and these should be coded as two separate people each with their own about_entity:ref:claim. If then a third citation stated that during the career of “John Smith” he was commander of “Police Station 1”, “Police station 15” and “Police Station 3” then all of these would be treated as the same person given the match of at least one posting across all citations and the similar names of the person in each citation.

about_entity:name:qa

Description

Field that provides human readable name for entity.

Attribute type

Text string

Status

This attribute is optional.

Key name

:claim/about-entity:ref

Example of use

Ye Win Oo

Guidance on use

This field provides a human readable counterpart to the about_entity:ref:claim which combines the various elements of the claim into a single text field. This field can be manually added by a researcher or automatically populated by the system after import. For a person best practice is to use the name:annotation in this field.

name:annotation

Description

Fullest name of the person as evidenced by citations. This may include a given name, surname, middle name(s), as well as other names depending on the specific context.

Attribute type

String

Status

This attribute is optional.

Key name

:annotation/name

Example of use

Zeyar Aung, Myo Moe Aung‡

Guidance on use

As with all annotation fields, this field is the singular display name for the entity. For a person this field is only used if the citation evidences the fullest name of a person, which is defined as the name with the highest number of characters. Ranks, titles, or positions held should not be entered in this field as they are captured in other fields.

This field can be dynamic and change with ongoing research. For example, a researcher investigating Myanmar may first come across citation 9f01b1c1-563f-4b40-a534-b91c7e1a5062 for the person of Zeya Aung (a name which has nine characters). This would be entered in name:annotation. Next, they may come across another citation 4c0aaa5d-a147-4f1c-91d8-46d005be1a04 that evidences the same person but gives a name of Zayar Aung (with 10 characters). This longer which would be entered in name:annotation, and Zeya Aung in the previous entry tied to citation 9f01b1c1-563f-4b40-a534-b91c7e1a5062 would be cleared. Finally, the researcher may come across citation c0b4b224-6432-45a5-854d-148d76af0ffa which would evidence the name of Zeyar Aung (with 10 characters). As there are two names, both with 10 characters each, the researcher would use the agreement of the name starting with “Zeya” to evidence Zeyar Aung as the name:annotation, and Zeyar Aung in the previous entry tied to citation 4c0aaa5d-a147-4f1c-91d8-46d005be1a04 would be cleared.

Occasionally there are two persons who may be the same person due to a near or exact match of names, and lack of any conflicting information (such as postings, dates of birth or death, or any other career or biographical information), but no citations have been found to confirm they are the same person. In these cases the symbol ‡ can be applied after the last character in their name:annotation to help visually identify them in their display name. A corresponding public_notes:meta should be entered to explain why the symbol ‡ has been used.

person:names:assertion

Description

Any name given for person from citation.

Attribute type

String

Status

This attribute is required.

Key name

:annotation/name

Example of use

Virgilio Daniel Méndez Bazan, Virgilio Daniel Mendez Bazán

Guidance on use

Any name for a person used in the citation should be entered in this field. While the name:annotation field is only used for a single, most complex value, this field is used for any name a citation uses for a person. Thus, this field serves to capture “aliases” of a person, which also includes any typos or misspellings that may exist in the citation.

Ranks, titles, or positions held should not be entered in this field as they are captured in other fields.

country:annotation

Description

Country person is associated with for grouping claims.

Attribute type

Text, controlled vocabulary

Status

This attribute is optional.

Key name

:annotation/country

Example of use

mx, ph

Guidance on use

Values for this field are chosen from the list of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes, which can be found (on the ISO website <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#search>). This field is used to aid grouping persons into datasets related to specific countries and does not denote the citizenship or country of origin of a person. The specific country code should be chosen based on any related posting the person holds, or any other contextual information from citations about the person.