Barriers To Genealogy In The Future

[jaybelnz]

Don't forget the LDS microfilm system, Jeanne. A great way for us on the other side of the world to look at records.

Thanks Pinefamily, I have in the past used our local FHS, actually found  my first two marriages there when I first started, I'd picked them up online from the old IGI.  They were a great help too. Actually I am going again shortly to find some more Irish References I found on Family Search!

Unfortunately, they are now only open on a Saturday Morning, and I've been down 3 times so far and the place has been chokka!  During the week was much better, there were not so many people there. Maybe that's why it changed to one morning only, and but can't  make appointments! Might try going really early, and be there when they open up, get a close park -  might get in that way! I'm not sure how many readers they have, last time I was there, there were only 4.

I've never been called an ADOBE before David.😄😄

[KGarrad]

My point was that as more and more information gets put online, we become less and less reliant on paper documents.

Ergo: paper is on the way out, and may become obsolete in a 100 years or so?!

Online research applies to me, too!

Living on the Isle of Man requires some expense, and time, and usually an overnight stay, just to visit an archive/RO and the like!

[Guy Etchells]

I long for the day that an Orac type computer (a supercomputer from the TV series Blake's 7) which has access to the sum total of all knowledge is available to replace physical libraries as access points to knowledge.

But even if that point is ever reached there would still be a need for archives that hold the original artefact whether it is paper, stone or other medium in a stable form where any change would be noticeable.

Without the safety net of the original any digital record could be amended without such amendments being discovered and history could be changed irrevocably.

The more recent improvements in online family history include the addition of digital copies of original records being made available in addition to the transcripts.
The 1911 census and the 1939 Register are good examples of this where the researcher can look at the original document a make decisions about the value of later additions.

I do think however that such a situation is far off and, before this is standard policy, there will need to be new forms of memory and storage to enable it to become a reality.

Cheers
Guy

[jaybelnz]

I have family from the Isle of Man KG - family Kneen!

[pharmaT]

I think another barrier will be the decline in the use of family naming patterns which have been clues in finding people in my tree. 

As well as people marrying abroad, just marrying miles from where they live and where the children were born.  For example I was married 300 miles from where we live, work and where my daughter was born.  Only the fact that my marriage details are on my daughter's birth cert would be a clue.  Any descendant of my siblings in law however may find our marriage but could easily conclude we had no children because of the children being born in a different part of the UK.

[pharmaT]

Sorry Rosinsh, meant to ask about your Campbells.  I have Campbells in Invernesshire.  Well not exactly my direct line because mt 3x Grt Gran had children to 2 fathers  .

[majm]

     Is there any evidence to support your theory about Australia?   I doubt it.

Yes there is plenty of evidence to support my views.
Any one who knows me knows I do not make statements unless I am sure of my facts.
I could easily give you references but in this case due to certain reactions with regards to some of my postings I will let you do your own research into the history of Australian repression of convict ancestors.

There might even be a clue to find some thoughts on the subject in this posting.

Cheers
Guy

May I mention that the locations of great deal of the official records for New South Wales from the Penal era are caught up in factoids.   "Australia" commences with the federation of the six British colonies (New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland) into one British Colony effective 1 January 1901.  The Convict era effectively ended in NSW in 1840.   At that time NSW included a fairly large geographical realm, and from the English perspective, this included NSW as the  governing administrative body for New Zealand, all of what is now Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, and much of what is now the Northern Territory and parts of what is now South Australia.   The official records for much of that administration was of course sent to England on a regular basis, and copies held by the Public service in Sydney, NSW.   There was therefore, over time, an increasingly pressing issue regarding the storing of those records, and much letter writing between the Admin in Sydney and the Admin at White Hall etc...    Some of the Sydney records were lost in a fire. Some were pulped.  But much of the records from the convict era are still available TODAY. 
https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/state-archives/research-topics/convicts/convicts

I am happy to type up information from the hardcopy of Guide No. 4  The Guide to NSW State Archives relating to Convicts and Convict Administration (the Convict Guide) provides an entry into an unique collection of records, created by both the British Government and the Colonial administration, covering the period 1788-1842, including the 'convict exiles' of the 1840s and 1850s.

I have access to private family papers for family members from as early as the late 1790s in NSW right through to current times.   Many of these papers are already with the Mitchell library, Sydney NSW.  They have been used as resources by many PhD students, for many years.   I recall being taken to the Mitchell Library as a child back in the 1950s, when some of these papers were being lodged at that time, and were being added to previously lodged papers.   I am sure many other families have continued to support The Mitchell Library, Sydney NSW.  I am currently cataloguing more papers from family members for lodging at The Mitchell Library. 

Add
link re Australian Joint Copy Project  and some of the State Library holdings
 
 http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about/collections/microform.html

Add
https://www.nla.gov.au/microform-australian-joint-copying-project   commenced 1945   

Cheers,  JM

 

[majm]

One of the main reasons for Australia having concerns about privacy can be seen in the tragedy that befell an ordinary family in Sydney when they won the Lottery.  The tragedy occurred when I was still a school girl, living hundreds and hundreds of miles from Sydney.  I am aware that families across the nation basically went from allowing their children to play and roam freely, unsupervised for hours and hours on weekends, school holidays to putting us all behind closed doors, inside, in front of the television, where we could be in eyesight of a responsible adult        or at least 'Big Brother' ....

All my cousins (many living thousands of kilometres away in rural Qld, and the NT), my siblings, our school friends, and over the years since, in conversations with people my husband and I have met, .... if they are our age, or older, they remember "Graeme Thorne".  He was eight years old.  He was kidnapped on his way to school, and a ransom demand was made, but he was killed before anyone could save him.  The kidnapper had found the details of his parents lottery win.   School children across the nation learnt not to give out names, addresses.... these became private information. 

My parents and their siblings included many senior NSW public servants , and several clergy.   May I assure you that they all date the privacy concerns that continue to exist throughout Australian states and territories to that one incident, in the 1960s.    Until that time, very little concern for what we could now call privacy or private, or sensitive information about the person.

The massive explosion in population numbers in the 1850s and 1860s far outweighed the numbers of persons transported under sentence of a court of law.  The population of the 1850s and 1860s was suffering 'gold fever'....   

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper?q=   
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/137118246
Canberra Times 12 July 1960

and

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=lL5f5cZgq8MC&dat=19600602&printsec=frontpage&hl=en   (Page 5, of the Sydney Morning Herald, 2 June 1960)

Cheers,  JM

[Rosinish]

Sorry Rosinsh, meant to ask about your Campbells.  I have Campbells in Invernesshire.  Well not exactly my direct line because mt 3x Grt Gran had children to 2 fathers  .

Pharma,

My Campbells are South Uist.........any help?

Annie