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  1. #1
    British Viking
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    Default Will it ever happen....

    .....for EVERYTHING to be available online sometime in the future i.e. births, deaths. marriages, divorces, burials, tax files, and so on and so on?

    There's a lot of incomplete ongoing projects here and there where the info is gradually being made available online for us to peruse but complete totality?

    Even the police records in Denmark (records of leaving and entering towns/cities) are only just now slowly being made available online.

    Just imagine the thought of you at your home sitting comfortable with endless cups of tea beside you, slippers on, seated at your laptop and lo and behold at the tip of your fingers you gain info on your great uncle's neighbour's cat......or something like that....

  2. #2
    Occasionally, just very occasionally, needs an umbrella!
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Lancs
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    660

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    Would you really want everything on line - what about the fun of visiting distant record offices, and the local knowledge you find there. When I started nothing was online, and - yes - I do enjoy sitting in my nightdress and slippers finding hitherto unknown information, but I still really enjoy the visits, and meeting people who share this absorbing hobby.
    My apologies to those who cannot - for whatever reason - visit local record offices and the like; for some, everything online cannot come soon enough!
    Barbara

    Life isn't waiting for the storm to pass - it is learning to dance in the rain

  3. #3
    Reputation beyond repute
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    Oct 2004
    Location
    Kent
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    16,792

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    Online stuff is a nice little bonus - you'll never see everything you need online. After all, there are documents out there that might be of potential interest to just one person. There's no business plan that could realistically accommodate that.

    Anyway, it wouldn't be much of a hobby unless it gets you out of the house occasionally!

  4. #4
    Geoffers
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    Quote Originally Posted by British Viking
    .....for EVERYTHING to be available online sometime in the future i.e. births, deaths. marriages, divorces, burials, tax files, and so on and so on?
    Oh I do hope not.

  5. #5
    BeeE586
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    Default

    Snap Geoffers. There is a thrill like no other in actually HANDLING old documents. Reading something on a screen can never replace that.

    I remember very carefully unrolling a tight little parcel and revealing an actual will of 1532, handwritten obviously, and bearing the signatures of witnesses and testator. Can a computer do that.

    Many have said what a pleasure it was to see an actual signature on the 1911 census - for long before that you could see signatures in marriage registers.

    There is also the danger that once material is put onto computer the original may be thought to have no value and be destroyed, and that would be a tragedy.

    Eileen

  6. #6
    British Viking
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    Ok folks,

    I stand here with my head hanging in shame, wrist duly slapped - but I'm keeping me slippers!

  7. #7
    Knowledgeable and helpful
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Wakefield, West Yorkshire
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    626

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    I dream of the day everything is online but that unfortunately will never happen in my lifetime and probably never.

    I believe it is imperative that everything is made available online as that is the only way that records are going to be preserved.
    Thousands of records from parish registers have been lost through carelessness, vermin, floods, fire and theft. Hundreds of census records have simply floated away off the backs of lorries, a complete census was lost to fire. The list of destroyed records is endless.
    Newspapers are self destructing as you read these words and thousands of tons of other unique records have to be destroyed every year due to lack of space in archives.

    It is still possible to access original records, the fact they are also available online does not prevent that. It does mean however that the original records are a handled less frequently and that in itself aids preservation.
    Here at Anguline we are busy with a unique project digitising a series of records which we are very excited about, but which must remain under wraps at the moment.

    However like the rare Wakefield Express directory we digitised for the local studies library this new series of records will be made available through Parish Chest in due time.

    Peter may be glad to hear that we try to balance our archival digitising. We are prepared to (and do) digitise records which archives hold even though we know they will not provide a commercial return for us. If the archive, library or church holding the record wants it digitised we make every effort to fit it in to our scanning schedule.
    Cheers
    Guy
    As we have gained from the past, we owe the future a debt, which we pay by sharing today.

  8. #8
    AnjaliUK
    Guest

    Default

    I'm quite torn with this one. Part of me thinks genealogy works so well as a hobby because it increases in difficulty as you go along. Often the census part is easiest, then you start to need more and more different types of sources, some online and some requiring a trip to the record office. I definitely wouldn't say no to it all being line though, it would be far too tempting! For example, I have come across a transcribed parish record, possibly for a direct line ancestor, where the BT transcripts give different information to the parish and the transcriber has put ?? next to their transcription. I am impatient to see the original, but will have to wait months until I visit Cambridge and even then, I think the BT aren't at the record office but the university.

  9. #9
    BeeE586
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    All of what Guy says is true - many valuable records have been lost for a variety of reasons and many of the records that I have consulted over the years were either on film or microfiche, not the actual documents but both are somewhat oudated now and technology is constantly changing. It is desirable that copies should be made so will those copies need to be constantly updated to keep pace with changing systems ?

    I have databases done on my original Amstrad 1512 under the DOS system which have been modified several times, but still have the paper records they were compiled from. I know nothing about the system of digitising - is constant updating necessary ?

    Eileen

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