Math in Genealogy is a great project (donate online). Sven Köhler from Potsdam, Germany has written a python script for visualizing the database, which I’m going to try.
First step is to clone the git repo:
$ git clone git@github.com:tzwenn/MathGenealogy.git
His instructions are quite simple:
$ ./genealogy.py --search 38586 # 30 seconds
$ ./genealogy.py --display 38586 > euler.dot # 0.1 seconds
Next step is to install e.g. GraphViz, which is needed to visualize the dot file as a graph. Go to the download page for GraphViz, and follow instructions for your OS.
This should install the commandline tool also. Now you can visualize Leonard Euler’s supervisor family tree (direct descendants) like this:
$ dot euler.dot -Tpng -o euler.png
Looking at the database is easy. Every invocation of ./genealogy.py –search writes to a sqlite3 database file (genealogy.db).
$ sqlite3 genealogy.db
This opens up a prompt. Have a look at the schema of the database like this:
sqlite> .schema
And see what is inside the thesis table like this:
sqlite> select * from thesis;