History Destroyed & History Saved
While I completely sympathize with the many people who believe they should be able to access their ancestral information online for free, the reality is that it costs money - and a lot of it - to preserve our heritage. From restoring historic ships, to storing and providing access to records, our history can actually be quite expensive. Yes, our tax dollars pay for some of it. But governments can't and don't save everything. Much of world history is actually saved through the efforts of private organizations. FamilySearch is an excellent example of this. Through the efforts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, millions of the world's valuable records have been microfilmed, preserving them against potential loss from deterioration, lack of funding, or natural disaster. We're extremely lucky that the church is so generous with the history they've preserved - freely sharing it with the world. But we all can't afford to be so magnanimous. A company or organization which chooses to make money, or at least recoup its expenses, for such efforts is not the bad guy. By charging for access to records which they have worked to preserve or make more freely available to a wider audience, they are making a living. But they are also providing jobs, improving access and, most importantly, saving our history from destruction. This makes the cost (at least to me) much easier to swallow.
Comments
Yes I was also saddened on hearing the news of the cutty sark. It is like a lot of things in these days we destroy things and say its progres. There are things we can prevent like you say it costs money and people think why should I put myself out when others will not.
The classic thing is the Australia Goverment they have a Census like we do in the UK when they have got the information required they destroy it Why. The information may give us amuater genealogist the big clue about our long lost relatives in Australia
I believe I read somewhere that genealogy is the only “hobby” that expects to get materials and resources for free. It seems that to do so is being a little unrealistic.
Often the cost of the subscription more than makes up for all the costs in sending away for the information or heaven forbid driving to get it (think about it that way and it makes it so much easier to handle).
We cannot go back in history and know we are making the right choices in family lines unless we have the documents to guide us.
I admit that the cost of such sites as Ancestry has gotten scarey but I really think that the new footnote.com will prove to be well worth the cost an extremely good value. Plus we know for sure the information is not badly bent maybe a dent here and there but…
As for totally free genealogy there are still some good free sites some states just have better information available for free than others.
As much as I have griped in the past about Ancestry.com and its fees, I hadn’t thought of the benefits Ancestry.com provides in terms of jobs, preserving history, etc. Thank you for pointing that out. It also makes sense that if we want to find free records available online, more of us should step up and volunteer to make these records available. Some volunteering we can do online from the comfort of our homes.
The frustrating thing is I can’t even get my own family information that my parents and grandparents submitted! Why should I have to pay for work that we did? I don’t agree with ancestry.com getting it all for free and then charging us for it! I worked for years as did many of my family members to help the cause without being paid a penny and yet we have to pay to see it now. It just doesn’t seem right. No wonder the church has distanced itself from them!
There are free sites and that is because of volunteers who have a passion for preserving the past. I subscribe to Ancestry because I don’t put a price on being able to preserve my past. I started research in 1981 and relied heavily on the Mormon Family History Center where I lived. I didn’t have a computer and used a typewriter. I don’t even know how much money I have spent for postage, microfilm, gasoline, birth, marriage and death certificates and etc. over the past 27 years and don’t even think about it. Whatever I have spent on my ancestors has been well worth it. This generation of people want something for nothing which is a real shame. I feel sorry for them.
I am very willing to pay to get online information, if needed. Imagine the cost of traveling to the original towns to see the documents, the time it takes to wait for responses when mailed, etc.
As to the comment of one, having to pay for what the family provided, I would have to lay blame on the family that didn’t keep the records for the family members to have. But, at least the records are somewhere, even at a cost, which is better than starting over (assuming it’s all documented correctly.)
Yes, I too was sadded by the loss of the Cutty Sark. I hope they build a reproduction to bring the history back to life for a new generation.
I have to say, I don’t mind paying fees for genealogy. I pay for the certificates from the county governments, I pay the Church for film rental, etc.
My problem is that Ancestry has become a near-monopoly over records and charges whatever they darn well feel like for access to them. If there were some reasonable short-term fee structures (say, a membership for 3 months instead of a year), I might be able to afford to pay for it. But there isn’t.
So instead I hope the gov’t pays for it, through the library, I pay for a membership to the University to get access to other databases, and hope that competition and a wider selection of websites will bring the cost down to make more documents available to a wider audience.
At the very least ancestry.com has to pay the data entry people, and the handwriting experts (to decipher the written alphabet), a minimum salary to enter all that data and upload it. They are updating and adding new records all the time. In a few years they will be putting up the 1940 census records. I don’t mind paying for it. I got 6 months free when I bought some family tree software too. The only thing I do really object to is the ridiculously high price for the world records access. Just when I get close to some info on my Irish ancestors the record turns out to be a part of one of those world collection records. I just cannot afford to pay for anything more than the basic membership at this time. But, like I always say — It’s always good to have a dream!
One thing that I have to recommend which is a free site and has proved most helpful is familytreeguide.com They let you post your family tree along with an unlimited number of photos. Plus they really help you to protect your family member’s personal information for living individuals and it is much, much easier to constantly make corrections and edits. You can use your own family tree software file and apend the website file. You can invite your family members only to have login names and passwords and only the people you approve and give access to can see the info on living people. It has proved to be a fabulous way for me to communicate with my family, get them to give me info, and share all the info I have with them. Speaking to your family is the best way to discover things. I don’t know how this site will stay in business since it is free. I hope they are making money because I have grown to depend on them! I can’t recommend them highly enough and hope you all will run over there right now and check them out!