How Much We've Changed

 

This weekend, I'm putting the final touches on a four-session genealogy course I'm teaching for a local continuing education program. This class will truly be an experiment. Opting to ditch the online scene, I've asked to return to the local community college campus which traditionally has hosted this program for decades. I want to work with people in person.

While online connections may be convenient—hey, the genealogy-in-bunny-slippers crowd would agree—there is something missing from that type of learning environment. I miss the synergy of face to face interaction. Something evolves from a multi-person conversation that doesn't translate well to cyberspace.

As I prepared for the first session of this learning experiment, the resources I explored made me realize just how much we've changed over the years, especially for genealogy societies and those who gather together to work on their family history. I miss the collaboration, when people shared which surnames they were working on, or told everyone about a new resource found—and yes, some of those resources or channels for sharing were even online. But the person-to-person element was still there.

I've met some of the most fascinating, warm and sharing, talented and knowledgeable people through my genealogy research. But it came not from simply copying trees from a company's website. This came from reaching out and connecting with other researchers. 

Collaboration and cooperation, sharing what we've got—and what we're missing: I know it's still out there, but often hidden from view. I want others to see the importance of that person-to-person connection now, ironically in this age of interconnectivity when so many seem disconnected. Hopefully, this genealogy course will model that. The energy that expands when people find others seeking the same answers is so invigorating.

Looking at family history means exploring local history, too. While I wandered through some century-old publications for our local area this past week, I recalled how production or sharing of many such resources once were the domain of local genealogical societies—from publishing their own books to preserving local records that would otherwise have been impossible for researchers out-of-town to access. Granted, now that I'm stuck puzzling over my fourth great-grandparents in my Tison line, FamilySearch's Full Text Search is finding many of those old publications for me—a quest that would otherwise have taken me ages to replicate—but this also reminds me of how producing material is no longer the focus of some of our local societies. Our focus has shifted.

Over these same years, our numbers have shifted, as well—downward. Where once, people saw genealogy not only as a fun way to learn their family's stories but a mission to share resources with those others who would appreciate them, we now have settled into a more comfortable, possibly shrinking, role.

Granted, generation by generation, people have changed. I appreciate what those who came before us have accomplished. I certainly appreciate what I can accomplish online now with the many tools and resources that were unimaginable in past decades. But there was something about that person-to-person connection of past generations that I think we're missing. I want to find a way to bring that back.