Use of Graph Database for the Integration of Heterogeneous Data about Ecuadorian Historical Personages

When modeling in systems about historical personages, the data is often extensive, complex and heterogeneous. Graphs are a natural way of representing networks of historical figures. Graph databases enable efficient storage and processing of the encoded relationships. They furthermore support queries and envisioning on the structure of data networks. We present how graph data-bases are well suited for the representation of information about historical figures, which is typically highly connected and semi-structured. We outline an application case that uses the Neo4j graph database for implementing and querying a prototype network to provide context to Ecuadorian historical figures. Our work suggests that graph databases provide an efficient way to store complex relationships from different dataset, for the integration of different levels of data granularity, and facilitate exploratory data mining to reveal novel relationships among heterogeneous data of historical figures.