Genealogy Chat

I'm not married, and I don't have children - so the answer to this is, at least in my case, is probably no... but do you think that in a couple of hundred years or so OUR descendents will be sitting up, huddled over their laptops until the wee small hours, puzzling about US?

Hi Linda, In answer to your question probably not,information will be at everyones fingertips,or they might be so busy with new technology they will be too busy to care about who sits up late at night wondering where they came from.haha regards trish

I suspect that within a generation or so someone will have mapped the whole world family tree. Chinese et al. Our descendants will have no idea of the highs and lows that we go through. Bob

I only have one son and he is not remotely interested. I will have to persuade him to have children in the hope that someone down the line will inherit my work and not throw it away! Regards Helena

Hello Linda, I have often thought that, but won't it be more difficult to trace families, because they don't seem to get married today, or they have been married a few times with the children having maybe different fathers, that would mean a lot more branches to research. Sue.......................

once I have my tree satisfactorily figured out and with proof I'm going to join the Society of Genealogists and give all my research to the library there so that if in the future someones looking for me I'll be there with all my ancestors. I've been told they do this for members - someone correct me if I'm wrong. Zoe

It will probably be much easier in the future but will it be as much fun? It took me 3 years to find a cousin and the feeling I had when I did eventually find him was indescribable!!! When I first started looking for dead people as my kids call it, I thought it would keep me busy for 2 weeks or so then I could find something else to keep me our of mischief. That was 8 years ago and I'm still looking!!!! As far as giving the information to the Soc. of Genealogy, they recommend that we all do that whether we have finished our research or not. And they are not fussy about which format is used. It sounds like a good idea to me. Jan from Gravesend, Kent.

I’m sure they will. The thing that strikes me is how we all start out trying to find names and build trees but in doing so we become experts in social history. Disease, hunger, workhouses, high child mortality and illegitimate births abound. It’s finding out and trying to imagine how our ancestors lived that gives the subject real value otherwise it’s all just names on a tree. When we cease to value and preserve the contribution of our ancestors we cease to value ourselves. Bob

I was wondering what to do with all my family info..have a son without children, thanks everyone for giving me some ideas.

Like so many of you, the bit I enjoy most about my research is the social history aspect. It's been absolutely fascinating to find out where all my 'names' lived, with whom, what they did, where they moved to, how they died etc. However, I'm very glad that I'm doing my research today so that I can benefit from all the resources now available, and that I'm researching an era when 'family' meant rather more than today and was quite clearly defined by births, marriages and deaths. The informal families of today will be much harder to track. I reckon we all deserve a PhD for our research efforts!!

Yes -and most of us are self taught! Jackie

Linda: 100 years from now my own branches won't have to go what we are all doing now. To be sure of that, I've sent my tree, which includes pictures, history, stories, eulogies, obituaries, documents, newspaper clippings, driver licenses, copies of old mortgage papers (you name it, I've documented it!) burned it to CD and sent copies to everyone in the family at our recent family reunion, as well as to local historical societies and the National Archives here in the States who will keep the disk in their archival libraries for future researchers. I update and send the disks out once or twice a year to keep the records up to date. My own branches will only have to pop the disk into a computer and have everything they want. Everything on the disk prints out true to size and color so they won't have to send away for anything. The National Archives and the local historical society gladly accepts genealogy information as a way of preserving our past....you don't have to be a member to send them information to placed in their archives. Judy

Come on Lorna...admit it, you couldn't resist! I know I couldn't. I have so much on my family tree disk that one could never find by doing what we're doing. Besides paper and history documentation, I've just thought to add both video clips and tape recordings to my disk which I have been busily transfering the data.....My ancestors will actually get to "meet the family!" How cool would that be if we could pop a disk in our PC and view our ggg grandparents? Judy