Last Saturday I attended the Baltimore County Genealogical Society’s Spring Seminar. The speaker was Dick Eastman, who if you don’t know, is the author of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter (http://www.eogn.com).
Dick presented 4 topics; “Going Nearly Paperless – How to Get Started”, “The Organized Genealogist”, “Using MyHeritage.com Effectively” and “The Family History World in 10 Years’ Time”.
Although I enjoyed all of his presentations, I found his last session (“The Family History World in 10 Years’ Time”) fascinating. The session was kind of geared more toward societies, but he presented thoughts and opinions that, honestly, made me think “Wow!”
The highlights:
Dick summarized his view of the “versions” of genealogy.
- Genealogy 0.5 existed up to about 1920. It was an expensive hobby as the records available were mostly original records and compiled sources (which rarely included source citations). Most genealogists were elitists whose main goal was to connect themselves to a royal family. There were a few genealogy societies, again, mostly for elitists.
- Genealogy 1.0 was the period from about 1920 to 1980. The invention of microfilming meant records were starting to become more readily available, along with reference books and better source citations. The release of popular books, particularly Alex Haley’s “Roots” caused a more wide-spread interest in genealogy. More genealogy societies appeared.
- Genealogy 2.0 was the next “version”, from 1980 to 2015. The emerging availability of digital records, social networking and the myriad of genealogy focused television programming has captured not only traditional genealogists, but a whole new audience.
- Genealogy 3.0 is where we are now. There are a tremendous amount of on-line records as well as genealogy information, resources and education found on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Wikis, Blogs, Google Books, etc.
So, what does that mean for the future of genealogy in Dick’s opinion?
- “More records on-line.” We are already seeing this. The amount of records available on-line is staggering. Digitizing and transcribing original records will help with record preservation. Everything from present-day microfilm, books and paper records from small local repositories are being digitized. The ability to archive email and websites is powerful. Not only will future genealogists will have access to a huge amount of records, but there will be archival copies for government offices.
- “Online, everywhere, all the time.” Cloud services are expanding and genealogists have access to records anytime, anywhere from traditional computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones and whatever else comes down the pike.
- “New and better software.” New cloud-based software will allow better collaboration and works on all platforms.
- “A changing audience.” Genealogists are getting younger. Because genealogy is “mobile” and TV shows and other media dedicated to genealogy are more popular, genealogy is now cool! However, the younger genealogists do not have the same interests. They are more interested in the stories of a handful of ancestors, not the names and dates of all ancestors. They probably will not care about pedigree charts and family group sheets. They also may not join societies.
Why would future genealogists not join societies? I LOVE the societies that I am a part of. I am lucky in that a large majority of my ancestors lived very close to where I live. I have broken through some brick walls because of information at local societies. I always recommend to people that they join societies, not only for the records available, but also for the people.
However, a recent group of college aged historians who were taking a family history elective were polled about their family backgrounds.
- 40% were not born in the US
- 90% had at least one grandparent born outside the US
Pick up any “how to do genealogy” book, ask any genealogist, “how do I begin researching my family?” The answer is to first talk to family members and gather information from home and second, look at census records.
Based on the group above, census records are essentially useless to 90% of them.
More on this sample group:
- 50% classified themselves as non-white
- 50% did not share a surname with their fathers
What does this mean? We need more available global resources for these next generation researchers. They aren’t going to find the same set of records useful as many, if not most genealogist do now.
Dick offered no answers to these questions/potential problems but he certainly gave me something to think about. Hopefully libraries and societies can find a way to still be “relevant” down the road. And hopefully we can expand the resources we use so that the next wave of genealogists can find the stories of their ancestors.
Aunt Barb's Papers 