Paul Gaywood. January 2025
Paul started with a reminder of the talks at our meetings during 2024,
including Heritage Open Days. He also reminded us of the other activities
the Society was involved in, including networks, archives, family history
shows etc.
We were then shown a recording of one of the talks that Nick Barratt gave
the Society back in September entitled Family History in the Digital Age.
Nick gave us a short history of genealogy and how it was an elite occupation
originally connected to the Crown: the much maligned monarch Richard III
created the College of Arms in the 15th century to bring in some regulation.
The 16th century was a bit of a Wild West period but with Henry VIII’s
reformation came the opportunity for people to buy land previously owned by
a small number of the population. So in the 18th and 19th century we see
land ownership and genealogy coming together.
In the 1960s/1970s there was a big explosion in genealogy with access to
more records, family history societies and instructions on how people could
research their own family histories and in 2004 Who Do You Think You Are?
shifted people’s perceptions – everyone could have a go. Nick went on to say
how digitised sources through the internet had a massive impact and how
the pandemic had changed things; Zoom allowed many more people to
communicate collectively but something was lost in terms of personal
communication with things such as social distancing. Archives had to limit
the number of people using resources and the need for documents to be
sanitised etc. Austerity resulted in cuts and this had an impact on librarians
and archivists. The accessibility of records online also meant that not as
many people were visiting archives for their research. We all have a
responsibility to use our archives and help support them.
Nick then went on to give us an overview of how genealogy websites which
owned data collected through censuses and the information that we
ourselves uploaded made them financially viable but asked us to think about
the consequences. Not all information is accurate. He talked about DNA
being a useful research tool but there were ethical challenges to this as once
DNA has been uploaded it is there and Nick cited the hacking of 23andMe.
He then went on to talk about AI and the implications of this and how it was
applied in different ways without permission. About how we need a safe,
trusted depository. Are we happy with how we share our own content? Nick’s
talk drew to a close by reminding us that our legacies were going to be
increasingly digital and to think about how we were going to pass this on. We
need connection with trusted institutions and he strongly expressed his view
that local community archives had an important role in family history in the
digital age by maintaining the integrity of stored information.
Paul finished the meeting by giving a brief overview of talks for the first six
months of 2025.
Lorraine Simpson Mem 148
