The fast-paced, ever-changing digital age that we live in has revolutionized the way we do genealogy work. Historically, family history has
been the luxury of nobility and the very rich.
Digitizing, and especially the Internet, has democratized genealogy. Much family history is now available to everyone
at all hours of the day. Now every
ancestor is important, the most humble servant, the slave, the indentured
servant, etc--but the only ancestors that can be found are those whose records
have survived.
What documents will our descendants be
able to find of our lives? In some ways
the records we are creating now are even threatened more than the records of
the past. We are creating a Digital Dark
Age every day as our digital correspondence and records are lost, so here are some tips to make sure you're creating a lasting and meaningful digital history.
1. The Library of Alexandria Rule for Genealogists: The more copies there are of something, the more likely it is to survive. Share, Share Share--with relatives,
databases and libraries and archives. Keep files in as many places as you can.
Always have electronic and print copies.
Never keep anything in only one format.
2. Replicate in different formats: Make
copies in the most common digital formats, .jpg, .tiff, .txt, .ged, .csv, .rtf,
.pdf. Paper
is still the most durable format. Store
larger files, and smaller stripped down files of the same data when possible
(such as different sized scans). Who
knows what you might want to do with the information in the future?
You can make a difference in your
family. To avoid a Digital
Dark Age in this generation, we must ensure that our digital records are
accessible and useable for the future. The way we manage the records we create has to
keep pace with our digital record creation. You can make a difference in your family by
doing your best to preserve your own documents.
With attention and a plan, we can preserve our records and not become
the Digital Dark Age generation.
