Connectivity

 

If there's one thing necessary for genealogical success, it's connectivity. By that, I don't just mean the technological implications of access to online networks, but also those interpersonal connections which inspire our curiosity, power our continued determination to discover, and help bring our ancestors' stories to life. The pursuit of our family's history, after all, could never be the same without the impetus of sharing.

Reviewing my long trail of unsuccessful attempts to discover my Polish roots, this past week has reminded me of all my fellow researchers who breathed hope into what I felt was my Sisyphean burden. In case you missed it, it's been a long trail of failed attempts—as in decades long. Still, there's been a lot of material collected, not just details about ancestors (of which I still am sorely lacking) but helpful tips, guidance, articles, and resources shared over decades. Connectivity.

That connectivity, at first, came in the form of old online forums. Remember GenForum? How about the online RootsWeb Review with Myra Vanderpool Gormley? Or—now, this is stretching a ways back—the genealogy forums on Prodigy? Though those resources have gone the way of the floppy disc dinosaurs, at one point I had hoped that flourishing interest in genealogy blogging might become a newer way for researchers to connect.

At one point it was, but the heyday of blogging, in general, has waned. Except maybe for one exception, which I've lately been considering. And thanks to a tip from Canadian blogger Gail Dever in yesterday's "This week's crème de la crème" selections, I instantly hopped on over to Australian Lex Knowlton's "Knext Gen Genealogy" and her overview of the possibilities for "meaningful genealogical connections" through Substack.

Substack has been around long enough for several of the writers I follow—both in genealogy and in other fields—to have established their own niche there. It is, as Lex put it, a resource for cultivating "genuine community." Connectivity: between thinkers, writers, researchers, experimenters, and even seekers of family connections.

True, as Lex mentioned, "finding niche communities can still be hard." But we as genealogists can be—and have been—a force for redirection. We can be the ones who, by gathering together, create the very space we long to find for that necessary connectivity, whether on those now-so-nineties genealogy forums, or on social media, or by creating the next space for us to collectively gather online.