Digitising the paper panopticon
Claudine Chionh
University of Melbourne
linux.conf.au, January 2009

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, 1968
One can venture to prophesy, looking forward to the
quantitative history of the 1980s, that in this area at
least, tomorrow’s historian will have to be able to
[program] a computer in order to survive.

Quantitative history

This talk
◮ ‘Digital history’
◮ Founders and Survivors project

Old Bailey Online
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/

Founders and Survivors
Transportation to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania)

A well-recorded population

A conduct register

‘stealing some bread’
or: ‘administering poison to my wife on a piece of bread’

‘stealing one sheep’
or: ‘bestiality with a sheep in a field’

Quantitative data analysis
◮ SQL
◮ Perl
◮ Python
◮ R
◮ etc.

XML
◮ Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) http://www.tei-c.org/
◮ BaseX http://www.basex.org/

John Cozins
<name>
<surname>Cozins</surname>
<forename>John</forename>
</name>
<shipName>William Metcalf</shipName>
<dateArr>4/Sep/1834</dateArr>
<sentencePlace>Oxford Asss</sentencePlace>
<dateTrial>1/Mar/1834</dateTrial>
<sentenceLength>Life</sentenceLength>
<transportedFor>Beastiality</transportedFor>
<reportGaol>imprisoned before, bad in every
respect</reportGaol>
<reportHulk>orderly</reportHulk>
<marital>Single</marital>
<offenceStated>having connexions with a Sheep, once
for Apple Stealing 3 Months</offenceStated>

Mary Ann Armstrong
<name>Armstrong, Mary Ann.</name>
...
<remarks>Remarks.
<complexion type=\"fair\">Fair</complexion>
<pockmarks>pockpitted</pockmarks>.
<scar location=\"nose\">Scar on Nose.</scar>
<scar location=\"left leg\">Scar on left leg.</scar>
</remarks>

Challenges
◮ Technical
◮ Social, cultural

Future plans
◮ Web interface to database.
◮ Parsing textual data into XML.
◮ Sharing data with genealogists.
◮ Tracing descendants of convicts (forwards) ↔ ancestors of
later generations (backwards).
◮ Involvement in WWI, WWII, Vietnam . . . lives of
poor/disadvantaged Australians. Like convicts, soldiers are
well documented.

Contact
claudine@chionh.org
http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/
Photo credits
Jeanniot, La ligne de feu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lignedefeu16August.jpg
Bread
http://flickr.com/photos/jillslivingroom/2372428684/
Sheep http://flickr.com/photos/tambako/2890664794/