THE COMING GENEALOGICAL DARK AGES? PT3

Besides his warnings about records access and threats to record
preservation, Curt B, Witcher spoke about how the electronic
age has changed genealogy records on a personal level, citing the
decline of old fashioned letter writing as an example. He also
pointed out emails are part of a family's living history that should
be preserved. He made the following suggestions:

"To counteract the trend, Witcher encouraged people to write. "Write as 

you never have written before." This writing can be about memories, 

describing a family photograph or center on themes such as a family's rituals.

After something is written, Witcher said to share it with others. Otherwise, 

he said "many of those precious pieces of living history go into landfills."

Witcher said to publish — locally to family or even on a website such as 

werelate.org. Just be careful with personal information of living individuals. 

The object is to create a record that will be there for descendants."

Now we geneabloggers have been doing this for sometime now.

But Mr Witcher's remarks have been food for thought for me as to
what else I can do. I can post more about my personal memories.
and about when and where a photograph was taken. I can keep a
paper copy of my posts (well maybe not the silly ones) along with
the copies on cds, For all we know, some new technology could
come along to replace computers, so a paper record of my posts
might actually outlast the cds .

I'm considering putting my posts into book form, using a program
such as Blurb. And I'd like to bwecome proficient enough to
perhaps write an article on my West ancestors good enough for
publication for the NEGHS magazines or for inclusion in their
library.

As I said in the first post about Mr Witcher's speech as reported
by Michael De Groote, it's generated a lot of discussion.Whether
you agree or not about an approaching genealogical Dark Ages,
it certainly has made me for one think seriously about the state
of genealogical and historical preservation today, and about
what I could and should be doing about it.

THE COMING GENEALOGICAL DARK AGES? PT2

So what can we do to help preserve genealogical and hustorical
records and information and hopefully drive back the "genealogical
dark ages: that Curt B. Witcher warns us about?

I think we need to start with educating ourselves. How much do
we know about where records are kept in our cities, towns,
counties and states? Do we know how well preserved they are and 
if they are well protected against possible water damage? Have they
already been digitized. If not, are there any plans to do so? What
sort of funding is allocated for their upkeep and is it sufficient to the
task? Is that funding in jeopardy and is it a ballot question in an
upcoming election? Who are the people responsible for their
upkeep and what is their outlook on the importance of record
preservation?

We also need to keep informed about threats to records,
cemeteries and historical sites, not just in our own area but in
others as well, and when we hear about those threats, we need
to speak out! An example of this is how fellow geneablogger
George Geder alerted the geneablogging community to how a
Florida town planned to build an industrial park at the site of
an African-American cemetery. Another example is how
genealogists have organized over the Michigan State Library
issue. On a local level, join in the debate when an issue comes
up on the ballot concerning funding or preservation of historical
sites and libraries. Don't be complacent and think that the funding
will pass because people must realize how important it is to save
the site or fund the libraries. People are more concerned about 
keeping their taxes from rising than funding repairs for the old
courthouse with the leaky roof over the records room. Write
letters to the editor and attend meetings to tell people why they
should spend their tax dollars on that courthouse!

We can't assume that everything is going to be digitized in time.
We can't hope that a band of LDS angels will swoop down on
our towns and preserve every last record forever online. And
by the way, computer files can be lost and destroyed as well.
so we still need to see that the original records are preserved
even after they are digitized.

Mr Witcher also addressed how the electronic age has affected
history on a personal level, and I'll address that in the final part
of this discussion.

THE COMING GENEALOGICAL DARK AGES? PT1

There's been a bit of discussion today on my wall on Facebook
fueled by this link to an article in the Mormon Times entitled "The
coming genealogical dark ages" by Michael de Groote, which is
about a speech given by Curt B.Witcher yesterday at Brigham
Young University's Conference on Family History and 
Genealogy. Mr. Witcher was spoke about how many records,
archives and tombstones are in danger of disappearing:   

"Libraries are limiting hours and public access to materials. Courthouses 

are engaging in "radical sampling," where they take a few samples of 

large collections of old records and destroy the rest. "This is going on 

now,"  Witcher said.

Witcher gave several specific examples of the problem. The Ohio State 

Library gave away all its genealogical materials to a local library. The 

Library of Michigan was getting rid of genealogical items that are not

directly related to Michigan. The Boston Public Library is contemplating 

making its vast collections of newspapers inaccessible to the general

public. Seventy-nine percent of reporting U.S. Federal agencies believed

their records were at high or great risk of being lost.

This seemed a bit exaggerated to some, but not to myself and other
Facebook friends from the genealogical community. Besides the
examples given by Mr. Witcher, we only have to look at the recent
headlines about the neglect at the cemetery in Chicago and at
Arlington National Cemetery. And many of us have had instances
in our own research where the loss of the 1890 Federal Census or
World War 2 service records to fire have left holes that cannot be
filled?

The point can be made that digitalization of the records will prevent
such loss, but not every vital record is being scanned all over the 
country. In the present political and economic climate getting the
necessary funding to perform such a task is difficult when cities
and towns are already cutting back on their police, fire, and school
departments. Boston, a city once renowned for its library system,
is talking of closing some of the neighborhood branch libraries and
limiting the hours of those that remain open. The newspaper archive
at the Main Branch library may be moved to a less accessible
location to make room for a map collection. And in some places,
old records are stored in older buildings where they are imperiled
by leaky roofs, broken water-mains or electrical fires. I've seen
several news stories this past year of instances where this happened.

Sadly, many cities and towns are more concerned with saving money
than in saving their history.

The question is, what can we do as genealogists and historians to
help preserve the records and historical landmarks that are so
important to us?

To be continued....