The Family Tree
By Terence L. Day
Terence L. Day, genealogist and journalist, is on the Washington State University faculty. He welcomes e-mail at genealogy@moscow.com, or regular mail in care of the Tri-City Herald City newsroom, P.O. Box 2608, Tri-Cities, WA 99302-2608.
Like solitaire, genealogy can be a solitary game
This story was published April 2, 2000
Genealogy always has been a solitary pastime, but unlike the card game of solitaire, it has never been a lonely pursuit.
In the good old days of not long ago, genealogists congregated in libraries, courthouses and other records centers where they climbed their family trees. Even at home, writing letters in search of genealogical data, genealogists were connected to others, depended on others, shared with others. And there's no friendlier, more sharing group than genealogists.
But technology is changing that, making genealogy an increasingly solitary preoccupation. There is less need to leave one's home to pursue progenitors around the globe, via the World Wide Web.
The availability of old records on compact discs also is growing at an explosive rate. Most of the information available on the World Wide Web is free. CDs cost some money, but wisely selected, they are a bargain. They speed research and are a lot cheaper than traveling to distant libraries or record centers.
Judging from my mail, Family Tree Maker must be the largest single source of CDs for genealogists. Family Tree Maker also is a computer software application for genealogy, and a good one. The company also produces the World Family Tree, a World Wide Web collection of 50 volumes of genealogies. They hold a combined 98 million names in 143,000 family trees. Access to this huge database costs $199.99. Don't ask me whether it's worth the price. For some folks, that's just "walking around" money. Others would have to scrimp and save quite a while to get that much money.
Much cheaper, but still pricey for many budgets, are a variety of CD offerings such as the Irish Immigration Bundle. One CD contains the names of 1.5 million Irish immigrants who arrived in the Port of Boston between 1846-51, and in the Port of New York between 1846-65. A second CD contains images of pages of 12 volumes of compiled passenger lists containing names of 46,000 Irish passengers who arrived in the United States and Canada between 1803-71.
Images of record pages is one of the most exciting developments in digital genealogy. Anyone who has strained an eye trying to make out records projected in a microfilm reader will practically swoon the first time they call up such a record on their computer screen, where they can enlarge or shrink the image to make it more legible. This not only saves eyestrain, it enables the reader to decipher some entries that are impossible to read in a microfilm reader.
If you venture into purchasing genealogical records on CDs, be sure of what you're ordering. Some CDs contain only indexes, not actual records. While these can be of enormous value, they don't provide the information necessary to identify the individuals. They just save you hours of time and eyestrain skimming endless entries in records.
They also save you many trips to the library, and make genealogy a tad lonelier.
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The Tri-City Genealogical Society will hold its Mini-University at 7 p.m. April 12 at the Harry Kramer Senior Center in Richland. The Mini-University is a series of short classes for beginning and intermediate re-searchers. Visitors are welcome.