An example of an academic genealogy, the supervisorial relationship between Dutch topologistJohannes De Groot and his namesake, also a Dutch topologist descended from the senior De Groot via four different paths of academic supervision
An academic, or scientific, genealogy, is an attempt to organise a family tree of scientists and scholars according to dissertation supervision relationships.
Such projects have been well developed for Mathematicians and some branches of Chemistry and Physics, and specific databases do exist in the web. The Mathematics Genealogy Project attempts to go back to the time of Leibniz.
In some cases the links in such databases are not supported by documentary evidence and they are closer to academic or collaborative relationships. Also, the dissertation advising methodology was not equally implemented in all universities. Notably, the University of Cambridge did not require a formal doctoral thesis until 1919, and thus academic genealogy authorities tend to substitute an equivalent mentor.
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