Variant personal names for the same Japanese historical individuals exist, and when handling historical data it is desirable to control these. Furthermore, by grasping the position the family an individual belongs to within a genealogy or organization, it is possible to estimate the individual’s social position and the power he might command. At present there is no database providing such information in Japan, and there is a need to construct the authority information for personal names structured in a standardized data descriptive language. On this basis, the present study describes a project to construct authority information for the former Japanese noble families, which played a central role in the modernization of Japan, and for persons related to them, using topic map.

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