The digital things are fine if YOU USE THEM AS GUIDES AND OUTLINES. Hard
copy from the courthouses, genealogy libraries and FAMILY records are the
true test. Just because you find it online, it has to be backed up by real
data. Sometimes family member put in edited versions or leave out people who
have perpetrated slights against other members. It happens. Checking
histories and finding your ancestors at Guildford Courthouse is an
interesting discovery or some other history of the Shenandoah Valley and
find GGGGGGranddady founded the first general store or trading post at a
fort founded a Hawkins ancestor.
Trust, but verify.
John Philip Adams
Texas
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Huffstutler, Eric S.
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 10:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Genealogy Future
I'm sorry, I still can't correlate the digitalized materials versus
one-on-one communications of the past?
You have to remember that I use to run a Fidonet BBS Hub in Richmond before
the Internet took off. One of the areas I covered was Genealogy emails.
Then I hosted 2 GenWeb county sites and participated heavily in the pre
Rootsweb server lists and later Rootsweb ones. I have first hand seen the
downward slope.
Just because there are digital images somewhere doesn't mean that everyone
has "access" to them. And they don't contain everything for one reason or
another. You have an aunt Hazel that is not seen on any of those databases
yet someone may have mentioned her name in an email search years ago and
others who would "read" those post could connect.
But if people don't post messages nor their trees online any longer and that
person you seek is out of reach to find, how do you? Where do you?
It is a Catch 22 frustrating situation especially for those on fixed incomes
or lack the skills.
What I am saying is that 10+ years ago we had a bounty of information
flowing from all directions from distant cousins and strangers alike and now
we don't.
Homegrown websites are vanishing or extremely outdated. Databases have
become monopolized to a certain extent and so being are pay only and pay
only up front for a year subscription rather than month to month on a per
need basis. A lot of information can be obtained in one month so why pay a
year if you don't need or can't afford to? And then you have data outdated
on them especially trees that subscribers uploaded and haven't updated in
years. People rely heavily first on trees to get a direction especially
when dates, places, or relations are unknown.
Eric
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rondina Muncy
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 10:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Genealgy Future
I'd like to add that lack of color can also affect analysis of a document
that has been digitized. The Sanford Fire Insurance Map Collection is a
particularly good example. The early originals were created using colored
paper which indicated what material the buildings were made of. This
information is lost if they are not scanned in color.
The original discussion was addressing the reason why so many databases are
no longer being updated and questioning whether genealogy was on a downward
slope. I believe that the wealth of original documents online is the reason.
(Although it represents only a small fraction of the material we
need.) While online images have the same problems as Barbara stated, and as
microfilmed copies have, I still believe that this is why there is now a lag
in databases being maintained (sans those on major sites).
Rondina
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