This is an interesting question, or set of questions. My suspicion,
after having been in frequent conversations with Rose Schooff and others
who managed the computer end of Va-Hist and Va-Roots for many years is
that some of the original computer programs that ran Web sites and
discussion lists became obsolete, and the time-consuming difficulty and
therefore expense of manually transferring a great deal of data from one
format to another made it impossible to continue keeping them up to
date. Also, of course, some of the commercial sites probably belonged to
companies that have folded or been sold to new owners who don't intend
to maintain them.

Certainly, from the traffic on the many different genealogical
discussion lists and the increasing number of genealogical Web sites
there does not seem to be any significant lessening of interest in
family history research. All you have to do is go to the main reading
room of the Library of Virginia to see lots of people diligently working
on genealogy every day.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
[log in to unmask]

Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at
http://www.lva.virginia.gov


-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Huffstutler, Eric S.
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 10:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VA-HIST] Genealgy Future

I kind of brought this up a while back and now experiencing the same
problem but even more so and want people's input.

I have been doing online research for my family since 1986.  I even was
host to emails during the old BBS days and web host to a couple of
Rootsweb GenWeb counties.

Now the old RAOGK website is dead and a generic form started on Facebook
that doesn't have the same impact or offerings as in the past for out of
state volunteer lookups.

I am finding that more and more old established genealogy websites have
become outdated (I just ran across one that shows its last update was in
2004!).  Various surname and county lists and forums are rarely visited
or posted to.  I looked at Burke County, GA list on Genealogy.com and
saw a post I made nearly 9-years ago only half way down the first page.
Links are no longer working, volunteer email addresses have changed, and
there just doesn't seem to be any substitute sites.  In other words
trying to do research online as in years past is almost futile.

Has the hobby become out of favor to a point of no longer supporting
these once valuable information sharing sites?  Outside of paying
through the nose to subscribe to Ancestry which in itself is now
becoming outdated as no new Family Trees seem to be posted-uploaded, are
there other online options for help when one can not travel?

Eric 
 
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