Kpodo-Tay Genealogy - My Latest Obsession

I'm not a genealogy guy. I wouldn't even consider myself a big family guy. I'm very attuned to the nuclear family system despite growing up in an environment that considers it a travesty.

But here I am, with a new obsession - tracing my lineage and weaving all the threads that bind me and my cousins, and uncles.

Or perhaps, it's more my obsessions with building with AI that's landed me here. In my test run of Claude's Fable model release, I started tinkering with an archivist project which would live as a sub-domain on this site. Right now, it'll be archive.kaditay.com (although I'm leaning more towards roots.kaditay.com).

It's interesting how life plays out. I've often bashed my degree as useless but here I am, building out an archive which is exactly what one of my Information Studies courses was about. Hopefully PRAAD sees this and calls me a proud son of theirs, however cringe that is.

<div style="width:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56%;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/dXzlW1brZLALW4cQQj" width="100%" height="100%" style="position:absolute" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/nickelodeon-nick-ks-knight-squad-dXzlW1brZLALW4cQQj">via GIPHY</a></p>

Do I remember any of the things I was taught? Absolutely not. But I believe in my subconscious somewhere, those lessons at University of Ghana City Campus are guiding my mind as I do this.

I'm still building this out so for now, I'll show you some screen grabs.

There's a cool intro but I'll save that for when I launch this.

This is honestly my favorite part. I'm still figuring out the behaviors that need to guide this interaction. For now, it's just a pretty visual but it's probably my favorite part so far.

What's a genealogy archive without a family tree. Except I add a slight twist to this so it's not on the nose with an actual tree!

This is the working prototype of my grandpa, W.E. Kpodo-Tay's personal card. It shows some pretty cool things like his spouses, and children. There's also a cool life & work section where you get a quick glance at what he pulled off.

Then perhaps my second favorite feature. A quick way to see the relationship between siblings, cousins, grandparents, half-siblings etc. Here, it's showing Winfred Elliot Kpodo-Tay is my paternal grandfather which is pure facts. I can also use this to figure out who my maternal grand-parents are.

This is just the first stage. Once I build this out significantly, the next step is really to ingest data from my maternal side (the Avevor and Aidam families), and then speak to all my cousins to figure out their families as well if they're willing.

This should be loads of fun.

Is this a healthy or unhealthy obsession? I dunno yet. Only time will tell.