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Archiver > ALT-GENEALOGY > 1999-06 > 0928310656


From: "Lesley Robertson" <>
Subject: Re: 100 Million hits a day (the reason for the timer at familysearch.org
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 10:04:16 +0200


Guy Etchells wrote in message <>...
>The good old days, when one wrote letters to vicars asking for
>information, included sae's, waited months then in the end travelled
>hundreds of miles to try and view the records only to be told we do not
>allow access to them.
>
>Yes it is thrilling to be able to access the original registers and to
>hold them and browse through them, but it did not always turn out like
>that.
>
>By and large genealogists today have more access to data and more data
>available than they ever had in the past.
>I started over 40 years ago aged 8 and applaud anyone who makes data
>available in any format, remember if you see something written this
>gives you a clue that the records exists and can therefore be eventually
>traced.
>If you do not know of its existence then you cannot set about tracing
>it.

Very, very true - and yesterday, thanks to the LDS site, I found several
couples I've been looking for, in parishes I hadn't even considered. Having
the english and scots stuff in one database makes life much easier when
researching a Borders village. Now that I know where they were, I can head
for the archives and check the original entries. I've rarely more than one
day free for the Archives when I'm home in Scotland, so any pre-searching I
can do saves valuable time - and rarely visit London, so have to communicate
with the english archives by post.
I'm grateful to anyone who puts indexes on line - they've very valuable
tools! I'll check any data I find on line, but then I check whatever I find
in other secondary sources - wishful thinking hit genealogy LOOOONG before
computers were even a twinkle in anyone's eye!
Lesley Robertson

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