…With all the best will in the world , apart from the odd piece of information, most of the people who lived and died in the 19 century remain just names.
We have no idea what they thought, how they lived their lives, we can speculate about them from sources like the census, bmd certificates, but as I said ultimately they are just names, and any tree is just a collection of names.
Ron
Perhaps when we get to the 15th century but in the 18th and 19th centuries there is a vast amount of information that is available in archives, though not online.
For instance in some cases newspapers could tell you what your ancestor wore, what he/she looked like how tall they were and many other details.
If they were in a poor house you could even discover what they ate for breakfast.
The records are out there we just have to do the research.
Certainly provoked a response! So far as I am concerned Family History is fast becoming over commercialised, and a major offender is the ONS and the National Censuses etc, selling them on to commercial companies.We are most probably stuck with the commercial approach, but let's just hope it doesn't wreck things for the genuine researcher!No souring just too many commercial sites now.
If it was not for commercial sites (& the LDS members who pay tithes) there would be no choice but to visit the archives as we did in the old days.
The majority of online records are either hosted on commercial sites or have been digitised for the archive by commercial companies as part of a hosting deal. This includes Scottish records.
PS my commercial site has in the last few days added a records of Irish people, with more to follow.
Cheers
Guy
