The Swiss elite kinship generator (Skingen) and the Swiss elite affiliation network generator (NetGen): two interactive tools for research on local elites

Pierre Benz from the Sinergia project team — with help from IT officers Jean Ceppi and Steven Piguet — have developed two interactive web applications to study the family ties and institutional affiliation networks of local elites in Basel, Geneva, and Zurich.

The local elite kinship generator (Skingen) allows users to generate family networks and family trees. It allows users to explore the structure of family ties of elites and their positions of power in real time, over several generations and to the desired degree of kinship.

The local elite affiliation network generator (NetGen) allows users to generate affiliation networks based on a surname, a sphere, a cohort, or a region. It allows users to explore the links between elites through the positions they hold in institutions that concentrate economic, political, academic and cultural power.

Instructions for how to use the applications are available directly on the applications’ respective sites in a dedicated tab.

Family tree of the Hoffmann-La Roche dynasty, centered around Lukas Hoffmann, the grandson of company founder Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche