DB design for storing family tree information

From: P.A. <john.doe_at_nospam.org>
Date: 2000/01/14
Message-ID: <387F48CB.808309F_at_nospam.org>#1/1

Hi,

I am trying to design a small DB to store my family tree information. I have come up with a design as follows,

Ancestors

---

Name NOT NULL (PK)

Father          (FK) 
Mother		(FK)

<other-info>

Foreign key (Father,Mother) into Couple table

Couples

---

Husband NOT NULL (PK) (FK) -- refers to a row in Ancestors Wife NOT NULL (PK) (FK) -- refers to a row in Ancestors
<other-info>

I was happy with this design and then I read a very interesting thread, (unfortunately only partially thanks to my news-server) on BOM where Mr. Celko gave an interesting alternative using "SET". Now family tree information is not exactly a single tree hierarchy, but more a DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph), since both the mother and the father have a tree. I was wondering are there any better (or just interesting) ways to design this DB ?

TIA P.A.

P.S. On BOM thread, there was another interesting post by, (I apologize if I am mistaken) Mr. Kyle, but unfortunately it was removed from my server before I had a chance to read it completely. What was his approach - if you don't mind repeating it. Received on Fri Jan 14 2000 - 00:00:00 CET