Several people have commented that they lack the money or energy to travel to courthouses, etc. So do I. I live in in the backwoods of Colorado, not even close to a good genealogy library--the one in Denver which probably doesn't have material on my southern families anyhow. But I am lucky enough to live near a number of LDS Family History Centers (the nearest about 30 minutes' drive)--and I order microfilm and order microfilm... I have uncovered astounding documents that overturned all the earlier versions of a family with one simple phrase in one deed: "my son Elijah..."  No one else had ever bothered to read those deeds. I sat at a microfilm reader in a little town in Colorado and redid history. 

Please--find your nearest FHC. The film costs $5.50 a reel, but that's a lot cheaper than buying a book or traveling to Virginia (or GA, SC, etc). That said, not everything is on microfilm. Sometimes--because I network--I know another descendant of the same family who lives near Richmond or Raleigh and I can send them to "fetch." Sometimes I have to hire a professional--because I don't know what is there--and that gets expensive for a retiree (me) living on a limited income , but sometimes it's also worth it. Not long ago a professional researcher found exactly the one document (in a box of loose papers in Raleigh) that may help me solve a problem that generations haven't been able to solve. 

Sometimes I work with people who aren't even able to use the microfilm at the FHC for one reason or another. But I can--so we pool our resources. Even when I had to hire a professional (found on the internet), I was still able to call on several other researchers of the same family for small donations in the effort. 

Those of us who know what we are doing need to network, to gather a group of people who are interested and willing--but perhaps not as experienced or knowledgeable--to help us.  I was only able to get the document from Raleigh through a professional researcher because a man in California who does live near a good library pulled every deed abstraction from every NC publication he could find and sent them to me. I thought several looked interesting and wondered if there were more... 

Etc. etc. There are many ways around our limitation of time and space. The internet is always valuable in that respect--but we have to use it wisely. 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Madaline Preston<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
  To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
  Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 6:39 AM
  Subject: [VA-ROOTS] genealogy popularity


  A few thoughts....

  These lists always slow down in the summer.

  There have always been those who want a "quick" family history, real or
  imagined... those who manipulate data, patch together facts.

  The indoctrinated, people who are truly interested in family history, have
  learned to dig through records at courthouses, etc. and leave heresay for
  the more careless researchers.

  The "faint of heart" soon are weeded out and we are left with the old
  "die-hards"  which is why the likes of you and I are still here.

  One of the older....:)
  M. Preston

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