Genealogy And The Internet

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GenealogyAndThe Internet

• By
• Stacey Blanton
• IET 110.002
• October 13, 2003

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History of the Internet In 1957, Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA), a division of
the Department of Defense was formed.
Approximately five years later, the RAND
Corporation was commissioned by the US Air Force
to develop a method for the military to be able
to maintain command of nuclear arms in case of an
attack.
By 1968, ARPANET was developed by networking four
university computers together. In 1973, the
first email group was formed. Other agencies
took over development of the Internet, and by
1996, backbone networks were in place to carry
millions of addresses.
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Genealogy and the Internet Genealogy is the
study of family history. In the past,
researchers had to venture to old abandoned
Cemeteries
or musty old courthouses
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However, with the advent of the Internet,
genealogy is experiencing an explosion of
researchers.
In 1996, Jeff Murphy headed a group of
genealogists to develop the Kentucky Genweb
Project. According to the History of Genweb,
their idea was to create a web site on the
Internet for every county in Kentucky.
After accomplishing this, they expanded to every
county in every state in the United States and
many sites for other countries. The sites are
maintained at the local level and monitored by
regional and national coordinators.
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After this, many other sites have been developed
and are essential for genealogical research on
the Internet. They include
http//www.genealogy.com
http//www.ancestry.com
http//www.rootsweb.com/
These sites bring researchers together to share
information that otherwise would probably never
meet.
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It appears that genealogy and the Internet seem
to be the perfect partners, but there are
negative aspects.
Lack of Documentation
Plagiarism
Misinformation
According to George Lake, in a speech given to
the Alberta Family Histories Society, he states,
I believe there are three areas in which we
have ethical challenges. They are in the
ownership, accuracy and sources of our data in
how we deal with issues of privacy and about how
we behave personally - our manners. (Lake, 3 Jan
2000)
Because there are so many new researchers
entering genealogy, they arent stopping to learn
proper etiquette. Penny Bonair of IIGS questions
some researchers methods, Genealogists should
be asking themselves whether they can trust the
accuracy of information found on websites
authored by people who copy the work of others
and fail to give proper credit or secure
permission. (Bonair, April 1999)
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Being a genealogical researcher since 1990, I
have seen firsthand the development of genealogy
on the Internet. By using the vast resources of
the Internet, I have met many people and
discovered missing pieces of my large puzzle that
I otherwise would not have found.
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Despite the drawbacks of misinformation, and poor
ethics, the vast majority of researchers are
ethical and honest, and only want to pass on
information about their ancestry.