Lewis,
I save copies of any documents that are not easily (not necessarily
freely) available on line from a genuine repository.
Let me explain.
I do extensive single name studies. I do not keep copies of the
hundreds of census pages that I look up. I figure that, if I can
document precisely where they were found, any other researcher might
be able to look them up and validate my findings. I do keep copies of
pages for lines of personal interest so that I can display them on my
web site. I usually keep copies of pages when I have made an
important discovery that might be contentious.
I keep copies of documents that I found that were not online, like
land transactions or wills or what have you.
If I find a web site that has data on it - like a cemetery recording
- that is not in a repository, I usually print it out as a PDF file
that I can store electronically.
However, the greatest danger to all of us are the attempts by various
local, state, and federal officials to remove our access to
historical records either on-line or at their offices. Under the
guise of either preventing evil doers or budget constraints or
whatever, we could lose our ability to do research. And keeping
copies of any records we have might be necessary as the next
generation may not have access to those records.
john.
At 07:10 AM 4/29/2006, Lewis wrote:
It seems as if this discussion has gone off on a couple of tangents
from the original question (See original post below).
The question is not
1) whether we should print out hard copies of our files.
2) whether we should save our work only digitally.
The original question is
whether we should save paper SOURCE materials such as census
records, birth certificates, death certificates and other "PUBLIC"
records after they have been digitally entered into LEGACY.
We are paying the government to maintain these files for us. Why
duplicate their efforts?
It seems that organization of paper source files is a problem for
many of us. It is a frequent topic on many lists. I dare say that
most us do not have them organized in such a way that our
descendants can make "heads or tails" of them. The point I am
trying to make is that saving a wad of census photocopies and other
public records is just going to add to the confusion and clutter.
As for preserving your family history (not your source files) I
think that publishing it in magazines, books, family newsletters,
and hard copies sent to relatives would be best.
Just my 2 cents.
Lewis
----- Original Message ----- From: "Lewis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 4:28 PM
Subject: [LegacyUG] Why save copies of census records?
Since I have been using Legacy to attach census images to people
appearing in the census, I am wondering if there is any longer a
need for a hard copy record. What do you think?
The same might be true for obituaries, birth and death
certificates, and some others.
Since most information is stored electronically these days, why are
we still saving hard copies and filling up file cabinets? Also
trying to come up with a decent filing system. Do we really need these things?
Isn't it time to move into the 21th century and file electronically?
Lewis
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