Localities as they are situated in the hierarchy of jurisdictions follow a pattern of a “child-to-parent” or subordinate relationship. It is possible to use the names and other features of identification of each of a locality’s jurisdictional superior to help identify that locality. In record linkage this is called relationship matching. Figure 1 illlustrates how a town as the principal locality is situated in a civil jurisdictional hierarchy.
Thus there are two different kinds of records that may be linked. The locality may be supplied with its own unique identifiers, such as, settlement date, coordinate set of a geographical point representing the town. This linkage is illustrated in figure 2.
In order to perform hierarchical record linkage the attributes of the respective localities of the jurisdictional hierarchies to be matched are compared. The hierarchy may be supplied with identifiers that relate to it. This linkage is illustrated in figure 3. This comparison was not a successful match because of the disagreement in the name and other identifiers of the town.
