Friday, May 15, 2009

Snail Mail vs. Internet

So I've been out of commission for a few of days with a bit of a bug, or maybe it was just post playoff depression now that the Canucks are out of the Stanley Cup payoffs :(. Anyway, I did get in my visit with my mom on Monday and she loved her album. That started me thinking about how it was my mom who sparked my passion for genealogy and how much easier it is for me to research my roots than it was for my mom. My mom started tracing her roots back in the 70's shortly after we moved to Canada from England. Back then there were no personal computers, never mind the internet. Everything she did was by snail mail. She would write to the records office in England and then have to wait several weeks for a reply. Many times the reply was 'no record found' and she'd have to start all over again. Can you imagine how tedious that would be? I don't think I'd have the patience. We are so blessed to have the internet

The internet, however, as great as it is in the world of genealogy brings its own problems. How trustworthy is the information we gather from the internet? How do we deal with the mounds of information and paper we accumulate from all of our internet information? How do we back-up and protect that information? How do we make all of our hard work relevant and exciting for our descendants? Over the next few blogs I'm going to write about how I try to deal with some of these issues and maybe I'll be able to give you some new ideas or information that you will be able to use as you pursue your passion to trace your roots.

BTW...did anyone take me up on my challenge last week to create something based on the saying "Home is where our story begins"? I have some ideas in my head but because of being under the weather this week I haven't been able to physically do anything yet. I'm going to try to have something done over the weekend and I'll post it as soon as it's done. I challenge you to do the same. Good luck and happy scrapping!!

1 comment:

  1. What a beautiful layout!

    I'll be following your blog, because I also am interested in family history and in scrapbooking. The two go together so wonderfully! Scrapbooking provides a way to add so much, visually, to all the dry data we accumulate.

    I refer to the internet as That Great Index, because that's the main function I see it serving. It's THE place to sniff out leads for further research.

    Get well soon!

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