  We present results of expanding the contents of the China Biographical
Database by text mining historical local gazetteers, difangzhi. The goal of the
database is to see how people are connected together, through kinship, social
connections, and the places and offices in which they served. The gazetteers
are the single most important collection of names and offices covering the Song
through Qing periods. Although we begin with local officials we shall
eventually include lists of local examination candidates, people from the
locality who served in government, and notable local figures with biographies.
The more data we collect the more connections emerge. The value of doing
systematic text mining work is that we can identify relevant connections that
are either directly informative or can become useful without deep historical
research. Academia Sinica is developing a name database for officials in the
central governments of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Computation and Language;Computers and Society;Digital Libraries