Abstract: Microdata are a set of tags, introduced with HTML 5, that say, "Hey search engine, this information describes this specific movie, or place, or person, or video". By adding additional tags to the HTML of your web pages you can help search engines and other applications better understand your content and display it in a useful, relevant way. The Dallas Genealogical Society (DGS) is one of the first genealogical societies to implement the microdata schema to historical data within its existing web content with the objective of enhancing online discovery and exploration of historical records and documents the society hosts. Microdata tags have been applied to records associated with society publications and an inventory of Dallas County cemeteries that contains more than 32,000 entries. This enables search engines, such as Google and Mocavo, to directly access the data and provide more relevant search results to users. Additionally, browser tools such as plug-ins can make use of the marked-up data to add enhanced user features. The microdata scheme, and its relevance for genealogical research, will be briefly discussed. Discovery of DGS website cemetery database content will be demonstrated as well as a plug-in for add-on searches based on the marked-up web page content. Particular attention will be paid to (a) the role of standards-compliance for genealogical and other society webmasters, and (b) the implementation issues confronted by a volunteer society seeking to make their digital assets publicly accessible.
