How the internet facilitates family history research

It's incredible how available historical vital records are today thanks to the internet. If you have a name and a rough idea of date or location, you can often turn up birth, marriage and death certificates for a person in a matter of minutes, not to mention their address, occupation and parents/siblings on censuses taken every ten years from 1841 onwards.

Well, at least, this is the theory. It's not quite so easy in practice. But more of that later.

I was first introduced to online genealogy sites by my husband. At the time, his interest in his family tree didn't feel relevant to me because, as I told myself, it was the future that counted, not the past. I suppose I was also a bit afraid of venturing into the world of archival records, folio numbers and old photographs which I couldn't see anyway. Little did I know that these websites are extremely easy to navigate, even with screen-reading software for the blind.

What an addictive experience searching for records can be! I know this now that I have subscribed to a couple of commercial sites and begun to enter my data on WikiTree, the free and collaborative online family tree. One find leads to another, and before you know it, you've frittered away hours and become immersed in a world entirely separate from your own. Not that this is a bad thing. As a hobby, genealogy is both educational and productive, building, as it does, a legacy for future generations to benefit from.

I must say, too, that so much is happening in the world of digitisation that I feel as if I'm on the cutting edge of this whole movement. Admittedly, family history centres in the United States and England have been serving family historians for years, and popular television series like "Who Do You Think You Are?" have lately been stirring up enormous interest in the general population of those countries. But, then again, it's all relative. Certainly, in South Africa, genealogy isn't a big thing yet. I hope that my blog will inspire other South Africans to take advantage of what the internet is making available and begin to research their own family trees.