I wasn’t really sure about what I wanted to look up, so I just went onto iDigBio and clicked randomly on somewhere in Oceania. I’m not entirely sure what it is exactly that I clicked on, but it’s a mollusk of some kind. There was a lot of information regarding the specimen. They had information about the taxonomy, the specimen, how and when it was collected, where is was collected, paleo context, and other miscellaneous things. Through further research, I found out that the specimen either a sea snail or cowry of some kind.
I didn’t really find a lot of information regarding number of records or range of dates of collection, but there was information about the geographic location of the specific sample. They have a few links to Paleontological Research Institution Collections and http://www.priweb.org/collections/index.php, but the second link doesn’t lead to a page that works. They also provide contacts, but I’m not sure what the contacts are for, possibly for further information regarding the family of the specimen (?).
The information that I could make from the data was that it is native to Asia, more specifically in the Philippines, and that it was collected by Kelly in March of 1970.
Question: Is there anything that you think that should be added to data collections that might not usually be present?
Hi there! I thought your post was really interesting to learn and I had trouble on what species I wanted to look up as well. To answer your question, I may have to think about it since it’s a pretty compelling question to me. Usually, when I look at databases – I tend to look at medical or military records for my family research (i.e. where they’re born, how they died, etc). For an example, I have a family member who served in World War 1. I only have his registration and where he was buried along with information that he was a veteran. I don’t have any records of what company/unit/division he was a part of and that’s missing in the data base of my family tree. I don’t know if that answers your question, but I hope it gives you an idea of what I find a bit frustrating in ancestry data bases.