Is Free Genealogy Really Free?
This topic comes up every once in a while in the genealogy world - usually after someone gets fed up with the constant complaints from others about the high cost of genealogy. Or when a small genealogical society gets in over their head after their free online databases get too popular - to the point where they can no longer afford the bandwidth. DearMyrtle posted a very enlightening blog on this very subject this week, Genealogy sites at no cost to users? Jasia at CreativeGene and Randy at Genea-Musings then took the discussion further with Money is a Dirty Word and TANSTAAFL, respectively.
How do you feel about these issues? Do you use the free genealogy information available with no thought to who might be paying to make it available to you? Or do you help support the free genealogy effort through volunteer time or monetary donations. Click on comments below and share your thoughts!
Comments
I am very happy to pay for sites that give me what I call Real Records: census, vital records, historical material, maps and such. (I don’t bother with the huge, inaccurate and unsourced “trees” and wouldn’t pay a dime for them but they come along with the census site.) The people who say “genealogy should be free” probably haven’t taken a research trip even as far as their local library. It’s true that records are free to the public, but you have to go find them. If someone has put some on the Internet for us, that is a blessing for which I am thankful. Everything we need for family history will never be on the Internet, and it will never be “free.” Hardly anything worth having IS!
Thanks for helping to get this issue some attention Kimberly. It’s one that people need to stop and think about but rarely do. And thanks for the link!
I am a librarian, genealogy volunteer, genealogist and former genealogy researcher for hire. Anyone who thinks genealogy information should be totally free is not cognizant of the vast resources of all types needed to provide these services. At my library we absorb the staff cost and only charge a nominal fee for copies and postage. We are dedicated to doing this because there is no other genealogy resource in our county. I also volunteer at a genealogy library in another county - this tremendous resource is only available because the city charges $1 a year for rent. It is completely staffed by volunteers which means it is only open a few hours per week. I could go on but few people realize how precious and costly these services are.
Wow, interesting question. When I started my research years ago, I knew so little about my ancestors, I saw my research — my time and money — thousands of dollars for research and records in the U.S., the Caribbean, Africa and Europe, — and for rare colonial and medieval journals — as an investment. I invested time and money to gain information and records that were not available previously.
The outcome is I am very pleased with the history, ancestors and ancestral cousins I uncovered. I am now in touch with my ancestral cousins around the world — an unexpected outcome of my genealogical research, as expressed in a recent international article in the Financial Times. I am also tickled to match my DNA with the ancestors I uncovered.
Financial Times FT.comHOME UK
Pearl Duncan - ‘My Scottish ancestors were heroes’
By Sarah Ebner
Published: August 18 2007 03:00 | Last updated: August 18 2007 03:00
“When I started to look into my family tree, I couldn’t have imagined the conflict it would cause. I spent 10 years researching my ancestors, and a lot of people didn’t like what I had to say at the end of it. I’d tracked the cultural history that shaped my DNA in America, Europe and Africa, and discovered that not all white men in the British colonies who fathered children with black women in the 18th century were evil slavers. I found at least one ancestor who was an abolitionist and who did not abandon his children…”
My family emigrated from Jamaica to New York when I was young, and I was always fascinated by where I had come from. My parents told me we were descended from the Maroons, or runaway slaves. Years later, when I went to our old family graves just outside Kingston, Jamaica, I couldn’t believe it when I found our birth and baptismal records dating back to the 1700s.
I now know that my roots are incredibly diverse: I am descended from slaves; from free people who worked and bought their freedom; from Maroon warriors who waged military rebellions in Jamaica against slavery; also from British merchants, and European and African nobility.
My Jamaican grandmother’s name was Rebecca Smellie and her ancestor was John Smellie, a Scottish merchant. In 1726 in Jamaica he had a child, George, with a “free negro” whose name was Ann Roberts. Even though there were penalties at that time - huge fines, deportation, imprisonment - for keeping records of black children, John Smellie left birth and baptism records with George’s name on them.
Three of John Smellie’s Scottish descendants settled in Jamaica on land he left them. One of them was called William Smellie and he died in 1800. He was an abolitionist, and when I found his will it showed that he left the maximum amount allowed under the slavery laws to his mixed-race children and their mother. Finding out about both these men changed everything for me. I had thought I was learning about the awful people who owned slaves, but instead I was discovering heroism, and people who stood up for what they thought was right.
I followed up these discoveries with research in Scotland, hiring Scottish genealogists and local historians. It turned out that John Smellie was of noble birth. I sent the records to the Court of The Lord Lyon, the heraldic authority for Scotland, which said I qualified for a coat of arms. I now have one that reflects the diversity of my ancestry.
My research also took me to Ghana. I tracked down dozens of ancestors and collected DNA from Ghanaian families whose names matched nicknames still used in my family. I spent a lot of time on the linguistic research, and DNA confirmed the connection. As far as I know, I was one of the first people in the world to use DNA in this way.
I’ve written a book about my research but publishers seem to think it’s too contentious to publish. Talking about black ancestors who rebelled apparently goes against how Americans see these people - slaves were victims, not rebels. Editors are happy to accept stories about slaves who escaped one at a time, but they don’t like the idea that they grouped together and stood up for themselves. That’s too threatening.
I’ve also learned that many black Americans are afraid, as I was initially, of finding a slave trader in their family tree, so they don’t really want to talk about their European ancestors. I got into trouble with my black friends for saying that John Smellie was a more caring man than many other colonials because he left a record of his child.
When you start looking into your genealogy, you have to come to terms with admirable and despicable behaviour, and that’s what I’ve done.
As told to Sarah Ebner.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d64cd9f6-4d22-11dc-a51d-0000779fd2ac.html