Why use a Computer for
Family History anyway?
As we are all well aware plenty of people were
doing Family history or Genealogical research long
before Computers for home use became available or
affordable . So why use one now?
A computer is only a tool - and a very useful one
- that the family historian can use in a number of
ways. There are perhaps four main uses that a family
historian can find for a computer.
First - for the presentation
of the results of your hard work. I can remember
drawing family trees by hand, a laborious task
involving graph paper, tracing paper, a drafting
pen and half a day. With a suitable computer
program you only need to type the individual’s
details once and the program can churn out Family
Group Sheets, individual records, Family trees,
even skeleton biographies of your ancestors. But
all it is doing is rearranging, organising and
presenting the information YOU have discovered
and typed in. I repeat - you only type in the
individual’s details once, and provided you
got it right, there is no possibility of
introducing copying errors. Conversely if you
have got it wrong, and subsequently discover the
true facts, you only need to correct it in one
place and every Family Group Sheet, Wall chart or
whatever that the program produces subsequently
will be correct.
Second - to preserve your
hard earned information. I would not rely solely
on a computer, I would have a back up copy of the
information, but its all there in one place.
Third - If you use a family
history program it cannot do the research for you
(despite the inflated claims of some program
manufacturers), but it may point you in the
direction of research to do. A computer program
can apply simple checks and report if your
information appears to be impossible, for example
date of birth after date of baptism. It will
probably have some system of showing what
information is missing, for example the program I
use is capable of generating a list of people who
I have recorded as married, but with no date, or
with no place of marriage.
Another thing that computers do very well
is sorting. Recently I found some census
information on one of the families in which I
am interested. I knew that William Edmondson
was living in the household of James
Hargreaves in 1881 and described by him as
his nephew, and that Ada Edmondson was also
in the household by 1891. I suspected that
“nephew” was an oversimplification.
In the 1871 census I found William, age 2,
Ada aged 8 months and parents Henry and
Martha. A search on my family history file
for persons “given name MARTHA, born
1850 “ revealed a Martha Emmott with no
details of marriage. Martha herself is
recorded in the 1851 census as the grand
daughter of George Emmott, who was James
Hargreaves father-in law. Now I will of
course need to search for the marriage of
Henry Edmondson, and if appropriate confirm
the parentage of Martha, but it is very
likely that Billy was not James Hargreaves’
nephew but the great nephew of James’
wife. The point is that in a clerical system
I might not have picked up the possibility so
quickly. I might have looked among the
Hargreaves family for Martha, or even in the
earlier generation of Emmotts.
Fourth - Communicating with
other researchers. Particularly if researching an
unusual name it is, as we know, often fruitful to
contact other researchers or indeed people of the
same surname. Using a computer you can write what
is essentially the same letter more than once, to
different people.. You may feel that a hand
written letter is more acceptable but even then
it is very easy to include a printed family tree,
list of people etc.
All these points gain an extra dimension if you
computer, as most being sold today are, is Internet
ready.
If you are looking for software there are free
demonstrations that you can down load to try out .
There is even a full program, Personal Ancestral File
available free from the LDS web site.
It is possible to preserve your family history by
setting up a web page to store your information . The
LDS site I believe has a method of facilitating this.
If you already use the IGI you will find its
Internet version, FamilySearch a lot easier than
going to the library. Unlike the microfiche version
it is not divided into counties, so that for example,
a recent search for the surname VOSPER showed that it
is almost exclusive to Cornwall.
There is some family history information on the
Web, but in my personal experience it is very much
biased towards the USA, which is great if some of
your family emigrated there, but not so helpful if
they stayed in this country. The Commonwealth War
Graves Commission has an excellent site which
includes an index of all service deaths since the
First World War. In perhaps half the entries there is
sufficient biographical information to identify the
deceased and attach him to a family. For example I
have found three entries for the name Fuidge, Ernest
William, J C, and Jack Henry. For Ernest William and
J C there were details of regiment and date of death
but no more, but for Jack Henry it gives “died
23 Apr 1918, age 21, son of Charles Strickland Fuidge
and Juliana Eliza Fuidge of 7 Silverdale Road
Southampton.” Previous to finding that
information all I knew was that my grandfather had a
brother named Jack , and my mother’s grandmother
had lived in “Silver Street, Southampton”.
There is some “How to do it” information
on Genealogy on the net, but I feel a lot of it is
angled towards people who already have computers and
are thinking of taking up family history, rather than
the other way round.
Finally - It has been said that the family
historians best Internet tool is email - basically
its just an easier and faster way of communicating
with other researchers. Not only can you contact
other researchers but other Family History Societies.
I belong to an email discussion group for people with
an interest in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
Basically members send in email requests, members
interests, offers of help, requests for help, to a
central point and they are then sent out to all the
subscribers. There are even discussion groups for
specific surnames.
So, if you are thinking about using a computer for
Family History consider - it will not "find
hundreds of ancestors at the click of a mouse"
but it could almost certainly help you in you
research, in storage and presentation of your
material, and in communicating with other researchers.
