Are we doing this all wrong?

[Mick]

Here in the UK we seem to be hampered rather than helped by the internet when it comes to reasearching our ancestors, coupled with the Government's rather extreme view of restricting census results younger than 100 years old (if anyone knows why please tell me).

We also suffer from the fact that unlike in many other countries such as the USA etc, other official records are not available on the web. This is symptomatic of genealogy. I put it down to the fact that as a group of nations we are so small the internet is more a hobby than a neccesity. We are in one time zone and to be honest geographical wise we could fit into other countries many times over so the travel aspect of going to find something SHOULD be relatively easy, plus the fact that most official bodies are either too lazy are too mean to upload material onto the internet.

I have a suggestion that might revolutionise the way we try to track down our relatives in the UK. Rather than relying on trying to find none existing official documents on the internet or resorting to some long shot plea on a message board or forum. I am proposing that somehow we set up a network of people who are willing to research local material on the behalf of others too far away to do it themselves, i.e. visit local church yards, parish reisters, libraries etc. People who are willing to give up a small amount of time who hopefully will find someone to reciprocate for whatever they are trying to find.

This doesn't need to be especially a one to one trade off. Anyone who has a internet provider usually has a certain amount of webspace allocated along with it, so if you have a couple of hours a week to go around your local churchyard say and make a note of the inscriptions and make that a "focal point" of your particular web space or perhaps collect local history.

Then what we would need is a focal point to direct folk to what they are looking for, once again this could be done from a domestic website.

Obviously it would need a lot of organising, which comes the the crux... yes I am willing to do that if you are willing to do the leg work. Obviously it is going to be a lot one sided for some folks, i.e. they put in more than they get out, but the wider we can make this network the more everyone will get out of it.

I await to hear your views before taking this any further

Mick

[Mick]

My father died this morning and as he was the last side of my paternal tree that has closed that avenue. As for my maternal side, both my mother's parents had died by the time she was 14. There must be other folk out there faced with similar problems in tracing their family history and we must be able to come up with a way of defeating this current Government's view of denying access to the records.

[snowwhite77]

Sorry to hear about your loss Mick.

Makes us all realise just how short life is doesn't it.
I am sad that I did not start doing my research when my grandfather was still with us, I know he would have loved to have read all the things I have found out.

Re your original post, Unfortunatley family research has proved to be a lucrative business, in which all the authorities are reaping the benefit of. I truly hope one day this will all be made available to us without having to pay so many annual subscription costs. Unfortuantely this is what has hampered my research at the moment. I can't justify spending any more cash on "information".
There are many forums on the net that do have volunteers who will gladly lookup people information for them. Thank goodness for these people. I have found geneologists to be the most friendly and helful people, and have made many a friend in my 2years so far researching.

Again, my condolences to you at this sad time in your life.

[Mick]

many thanks for your condolences Snowwhite, we are still trying to sort out all the "stuff" re my father passing away and that in itself is rather formindable if you've never done it before, and I also appreciate your comment re how searching one's ancestry has now become big business, this is exactly what I'd like to try and stop.

Here in the UK we underutilise (forgive if that is either spelt wrong or even doesn't exist as a word) the internet compared to the US, mainly because we are such a small series of countries, but we have such an opportunity to force the powers that be to get intothe 21st century... simple things like being able to book library books online which the US have done for years...

Tony Blair. aka the Demon Himself has supposedly stated he wanted to get the UK online withinn 5 years which was 4 years ago, we need to put pressure on the government,

I realise there are various forums dealing with genealogy but I feel we need some central focal point that can rally the the troops and force the government into providing not only free but update access to records.

In the meantime if anyone needs church or local records re people living in Kegworth, let me know because I'm only too happy to help

Mick

[Nikki]

Hi Mick

There is a Parish Register exchange online for the UK, most counties are covered and there seems to be quite a lot of people registered who are willing to look up from Parish registers/census/ monumental inscriptions.
There is also a section for "other resources" where there are various look up's offered ...
May not be exactly what you had in mind, but it's a step in the right direction!

http://www.parishregisteruklook-upexcha ... /index.htm

Nikki