I am so glad I had a childhood before technology took over

[BevL]

I was so thrilled to see what the library had in stock when I started doing my family research.   It told me quite a bit about my ancestors and helped me go from there.
I cannot get to anything now as I can hardly walk, so therefore I am also very glad of the internet .
Bev

[aghadowey]

My earlier post was not meant to condemn all recent advances for research. I think the internet is wonderful (I've found lots of information that I wouldn't have otherwise, kept in touch with friends and relatives I haven't seen in years and found long-lost connections). scanners and digital cameras are fantastic (going to take my camera out today and photograph a gravestone for a man in South Africa whose family used to live in a home near me), etc.

However, there's much to be said for in-person research. Looking at headstone photos online isn't the same as wandering in a graveyard- I've found many relatives buried in the same place when searching for a particular stone. Pulling down Will Books or other records off the shelves searching for a particular name can be tiring and disappointing if nothing found but when that elusive person is located you get so excited.

Over 30 years ago I was in the basement of a town hall searching through land records. The property I was trying to find was out of town (in the middle of nowhere up a mountain) and I was having difficulty getting my bearings since the boundaries were names rather than roads. A woman doing title searches saw I was having trouble and asked what area it was. When she heard the answer she said her husband's grandfather lived up there now, his family had for generations, and she'd ask him. So I gave her the names and returned to my searching the following morning. She said that the grandfather wanted to see me, so I walked for miles to his house and to cut a long story short he was my grandmother's cousin, owned some of the property I'd been looking for and told me what had happened to the rest of it. Yes, I had the original deeds to the property and maybe could have identified the location online but it never would have given me the family stories I heard that visit and later.

[BevL]

Kaybron  - The schools in WA do this as well as I remember my great nephew had this project which resulted in his parents doing all the work and his father going on with the research after that.
Aghadowey - I am sure most people didn't take offence at what you had written, but you know what it is like - once a person gives their opinion, then someone else does and so on till the subject gets somewhat changed from the original topic.
Bev 

[Guy Etchells]

I also am glad I started my research before technology took over, but, I am glad I live in an age where technology is available.

I was privileged to be able to access many original records in the past that in these days of technology are not easily available to the researcher here in the UK..
Original civil registers at County Record Offices, enumerator's returns of census (CERs) , bundles of wills, original parish registers.
Some of these are accessible online but the online records also mask details.
Perhaps the most obvious are the statisticians marks and additions on CERs or the problems of bleed through and discolouration on parish registers which were often clearer when viewing the original.
Even the pressure of pen strokes on a register gave clues as to the confidence or lack of confidence of the writer, sometimes the only clue as to whether someone may be literate or not.

Caution had to be used even then as there were many bogus or incorrect trees available to view even some official sources contained errors. Even the Heralds in the 16th and 17th centuries were not above inventing a lineage to please a client, others were happy to accept hearsay without other proof. Old does not mean accurate.

However we must not forget most of those resources used in the past are still available today.
Parish registers on microfiche and microfilm may be purchased, a number are even available in churches for inspection. Archives are full to overflowing with records that have not been microfilmed or digitised which the public can view.

Perhaps the real reason I am glad I started my research before technology took over is nothing to do with technology and more to do with education.
I was lucky to attend a school that taught me how to acquire knowledge for myself and how to check the accuracy of presented facts rather than accepting everything at face value.

When all is said and done the internet is basically a library or archive of information.
It is still up to the individual to question the value of the information held.
We must also be aware why the information was acquired and compiled as the reason could distort the meaning of the record.

[aghadowey]

Aghadowey - I am sure most people didn't take offence at what you had written, but you know what it is like - once a person gives their opinion, then someone else does and so on till the subject gets somewhat changed from the original topic.
Bev 

I can't see that what I posted was 'off-topic' 

[Berlin-Bob]

I only started researching when information was already appearing on the internet.  That is almost a shame, when I read some of the entries here, as you are successfully conveying the sense that I have missed out a lot. 

On a practical note, I would have to travel all over Britain, Central and Eastern Europe to visit all the archives and repositories I would be needing, so I am very glad that the internet is available (even the certificates I've bought were ordered and paid for over the internet )

Bob

ps

I can't see that what I posted was 'off-topic' 

It wasn't. I think perhaps Bev meant this in a more general sense. When they get longer, all topics tend to veer off the original path .... in particular when people begin to repy to comments in the middle of a topic, without reading all of the previous replies. One of the "joys" of all forum discussions 
(also meant as a general comment )

[pinefamily]

Guy, I think you have summed it up perfectly.

Aghadowey, I took Bev's reply to mean that it is so easy for a thread like this to veer off topic, not that your post was off topic.

So how's those Yankees...... 

[Ringrose]

The research project done in Australia is done here and is called Extended Studies.My grandson in his pre GCSE year has been working on this .He chooses his subject,researches and presents at the end a thesis .He has a mentor at school to guide him .My grandaughter did it in her final A level year over. 4 months .Again  choosing her subject and producing a piece of work of so many words.I think they find out so much that it might be difficult to cut it down to a set number of words.
Technology is fine and I'm glad that my youngsters introduced me to the world of the Internet.I doubt whether I would have kept in touch and exchanged family photoes and certificates if Ud had to send by snail mail.I do worry however about the amount of tine children spend on their iPods.My daughter just back from a family holiday in China said that as soon as their group arrived at a place the youngsters were trying to get a signal.
I find it so useful for on line shopping when I don't feel like traipsing round the shops
Ringrose

[lizdb]

The internet is great and makes access to some records a lot easier.
But it is only a tool, useful to give access to some records.
It is not the be all and end all.
Practically it is the first thing to try, and that allows you to check the records that are on there with greater ease than "in the old days"
But if that draws a blank, then surely the next step is to think about what other records there might be, and other ways to access them ( visiting record offices, LDS films etc), rather then concluding there is no record that can solve your particular dilemma, or worse still, just accepting a record from the internet that vaguely matches without doing any further research (either via internet or otherwise) to back it up. 
So often we see people seeing " the internet" not as a tool, but as their Master.