Databases Offer Instant Gratification

Is cyberspace the final frontier for genealogists?

This question was posed by David E. Rencher, president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, in an article in the FGS Forum.

The field of electronic genealogy is creating a massive search environment, but it has yet to create a research environment, according to Rencher.

The difference between search and research is explained by defining the users.

Searchers are people who quit working on their genealogy when they exhaust the easily-found sources. After writing a few letters and checking a few indexes and books, they say, “I just can’t find him.”

Researchers are those who follow sound genealogical research procedures. They learn all they can about the records available and fully explore them. It may take years, but they often find their man.

What has this to do with electronic genealogy?

Rencher says companies are spending fortunes creating search environments, known as databases.

Databases supply instant gratification, the kind of response sought by searchers. But just checking databases is not doing research, since there is no way to note what you do or don’t know, to verify what others have told you, to look for a trail in the records, to follow up and eliminate possibilities.

Cyberspace will not be the final frontier for genealogists for at least 20 years. The technology is not yet developed to place handwritten, original records into an electronic format.

Original records are what researchers seek. But hundreds of genealogy groups are typing copies of their area’s original records into an electronic database and placing them on the Internet.

This leads Rencher to note that over time, the line between search and research will begin to diminish, but it will never be erased.

The article, in Forum’s Summer 1997 issue, is available in the Genealogy Section of the downtown Spokane Library.

The USGenWeb project illustrates Rencher’s points as explained in an article by Jake Gehring in the July/August issue of Ancestry Magazine.

The project is a grass-roots genealogical effort that allows anyone in the United States to sponsor a Web page devoted to a county. Each county page may contain useful tips, a list of online databases particular to the area, such as research-interest registrations, surname queries, descriptions of local libraries, historical background information….

These pages are grouped together at the state and national levels to help genealogists and historians coordinate their efforts and keep up to date with both online and offline records that may assist them in their research.

This means folks living in Georgia may use records in Spokane County without leaving home. They simply get on the Net, type in http://www.rootsweb.com/waspokan/spokane.htm and see what’s there. Similarly, researchers may go to any U.S. county by accessing the USGenWeb project at http://www.usgenweb.com/ .

Call Ancestry Co. at (800)-ANCESTRY (262-3787) to order a copy of the magazine - and subscribe while you’re on the line. This publication’s articles will teach you how to use the Internet for genealogy.

But remember, be a researcher, not a searcher.

The Nov. 1 meeting of the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society, on how to use courthouse records, begins at 12:30 p.m. in the downtown library. A free beginner’s class is at 10:15 a.m.

, DataTimes MEMO: Donna Potter Phillips welcomes letters from readers. Write to her at The Spokesman-Review, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. For a response, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Donna Potter Phillips The Spokesman-Review