Friday, January 27, 2012
52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week 4
52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week 4
52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy 2012 prompts suggested by Amy Coffin; thanks, Amy!
• Week 4 – Free Offline Genealogy Tools: For which free offline genealogy tool are you most grateful? How did you find this tool and how has it benefitted your genealogy? Describe to others how to access this tool and spread the genealogy love.
This week’s prompt runs from Sunday, January 22 through Saturday, January 28, 2012.
File cases, file drawers, book binders and bookcases - in public libraries, in local and regional societies (genealogical and historical) and family history centers around the country. These are the tools, the repositories, where (literally) millions of volunteers, over many years, have collected the distinctive endangered records that still hold the vast majority of the details we as story-tellers and story-preservers need to carry on our work into the next generations.
These are local records of local families, generated contemporaneously with the acts of our ancestors, that we need to continue to assist to preserve. Many of them can eventually be brought online; most of them cannot. We must each do everything we can, in our local communities and states, to support maintenance of these "informal" repositories, so that we and our child and grand-children (and theirs!) can continue to receive their benefits.
Families are Forever! ;-)
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Excellent post! It is so easy for important information to be lost. I totally agree that we need to do all we can to support the maintenance of "informal" repositories.
ReplyDeleteI agree. In Australia many local government libraries are now setting up special 'Local Studies' collections, with an appropriately trained person in charge. Many of them have done the Local, Family and Applied History course through the University of New England (Armidale, New South Wales).
ReplyDeleteGovernment many times are not on the same page as humans are. Our society is attempting to preserve some of the deceased records for the future..
ReplyDeleteThank you, for each of your comments. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder to be grateful for the work that others have done before us. I am fortunate enough to have had several "ancestors" who were interested in family history and genealogy who collected records or copies of records that I could never find today (especially living on the "wrong" side of the continent!) But thanks to them, I have access to them all in tidy binders on my shelf!
ReplyDeleteKate, you are indeed fortunate. But, a lot of information just like that is in libraries and society cabinets and drawers around the world, as well. I hope they are still there when my daughter and grand-daughter are looking, as they continue the research my wife and I have done! ;-)
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