Monday, February 9, 2009

Genealogy in the 21st Century - Predictions

I was browsing through the Ancestry Learning Center this morning and ran across an article with the title "Genealogy in the 21st Century" written by George G. Morgan on 29 December 2000 (right before the start of the 21st century). I used the search box on the Article Archive page to find articles written by George.

There are two reasons that this article is very useful and interesting:

1) It sets a benchmark of what genealogists could accomplish at the end of the 20st century. George listed three ways that researchers could do genealogy research before the Internet, and listed 15 things that could be done on the Internet at that time.

2) George listed ten "new and exciting changes" coming to researchers in the 21st century. We are 8 years into the 21st century, and several of the technologies that George highlighted are already being used. He didn't put a specific year on when these changes would be available, so some of them could still be coming - especially numbers 8 and 9.

Does anybody use the Article Archive in Ancestry's Learning Center any more? It is extremely well hidden - buried in several pages of links. But it is a wealth of genealogy "how-to" articles (1,526 as of today, since March 2000) by notable, experienced and professional genealogists. You can enter topics, authors, subject titles or keywords into the small search box. There is an Advanced Search page where you can enter topics, publish dates, article collection, author, etc.

In my opinion, this Article Archive is a tremendous resource for beginning and experienced genealogists to use to educate themselves and others. It's too bad that it is so hard to find!

On the 21st century subject, what new technology do we already have available to us that George didn't list in his "new and exciting changes?" I think he did a great job 8 years ago.

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