Certainly internet traffic has slowed down in the last five or six years, and I do think it's true fewer and fewer "goodies" are being posted through Genweb pages and archives. However, to me the real value of the internet was the networking, the coming together of several people working on the same family, although perhaps in different branches.  I'm a "whole family" historian--I can't seem to stop once I start on a family. Really obsessed with the "big" picture.   I post these extensive family histories on Rootsweb--and I often get contacts from members of branches that are "lost" or sketchy. Just the other day I got an email from a man who said he'd quit working on our common family in frustration ten years ago--but he was thrilled to find I had his gggf connected in a tree.  Now, I had all sorts of disclaimers saying I THINK he belongs here based on the following evidence--but with the additional evidence from my new contact, I've become surer and surer--and he says he's been inspired to go back to work on the family. 

There are always those of us who did the libraries and the microfilm---butted our heads against those brick walls (and as my father used to say, "Dummy, the wall doesn't bleed."). People who thought the internet was going to eliminate that have probably given up, gone off to new hobbies--but not all. And there are always new people whose "Oh, my God, you know who my grandfather was!" emails appear in my mailbox.  

Not obsolete--just no longer a passing fad the media hypes. But those of us who are serious are still out here--and there are always people for whom genealogy is a new interest.  

Karen Dale


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