Wednesday, November 3, 2021

If You Could Change One Thing About the Genealogy Industry, What Would It Be?

 I follow hundreds of genealogists and family historians on Twitter, and occasionally there is a tweet that I really appreciate.  That was the case 5 minutes ago with this question from Natalie Pithers (posted yesterday):

This is an ongoing discussion with many more responses - check it out.

My thoughts include:

*  We need a "simple" methodology that leads a new or beginning researcher through the essential tasks needed to start doing research - the name/date/place standards, standard forms and reports, learning  different record types, finding home records and repository records, free and commercial record providers, good reference books, source citations, software basics, Genealogy Proof Standard, etc.  The original RootsWeb site had a step-by-step course of short articles that did this.  The LearnWebSkills.com website has an excellent process map, but who knows about it?  The FamilySearch Research Wiki has all the elements too, but is underused IMHO.

*  Each genealogy record provider needs a list of basic tasks and examples of how to use their site - how to create a family tree, how to find a birth, marriage or death record or certificate, how to find specific records on their website, search techniques, etc.

*  More competitors in the marketplace - nice players can grow into major players but it takes time.  Competition creates more record supply and keeps subscription prices down.  

What do you, my readers, think?  Please contribute to Natalie's list or add your thoughts and comments in a comment to this post.

We need more discussions of topics like this on Twitter, Facebook, in blogs, and on other media.

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3 comments:

uk genealogy hunter said...

Every website needs to provide a full source and citation in a standard format for all their records that can be cut and paste between all the websites and programs without the researcher having to massage it into their research databases. (Use of permanent URLs for records/facts is a must too)

uk genealogy hunter said...

Every website needs to provide a full source and citation in a standard format for all their records that can be cut and paste between all the websites and programs without the researcher having to massage it into their research databases. (Use of permanent URLs for records/facts is a must too)

Seeds to Tree said...

This is all leaning toward websites, but my change would be in the databases. I wish there was a way of connecting new people that you THINK might be related, but you are not sure. Sort of like a pedigree chart with dashes instead of lines. So you know it's a hypothesis, not yet fully proven. Then you list the hints you have, sort of like thought bubbles. Does that make sense?