Just back from the Society of Genealogists excellent Centenary conference held at the Royal Overseas League on seventh of May 2011. A superb venue, with good food and some excellent speakers. I stayed at the Civil Service Club which offers very affordable membership fees and accommodation in the heart of Whitehall. The conference theme was "Breaking the Barriers: Innovative Genealogy for the 20th and 21st Century".
I thought one or two speakers underplayed the theme and concentrated rather too much on the past and present without attempting to extrapolate trends currently evident. We know that the transition from oral tradition and reliance on memory around the 11th to 13th centuries led to what might be described as counterfeit charters. Taken at its highest the monks may well have just been trying to record what they believed to be the correct position as handed down to them over a considerable period of time. We are also on the cusp of moving from written documents to documents which exist only in binary code. What are the lessons we should be learning from that first transition to a new system of setting down information?
It seems to me the parallel comparable danger of binary family history is that we need to understand how our motives for recording our story may change over time. As time passes events may be seen through rose coloured spectacles, we may either dis-remember or distort events of the past, we may give them a gloss which either enhances or conceals our own actions. We may have ulterior motives, be they political, social or economic for recording our history in a particular way. This seems to me to suggest a need for greater scepticism and the ability to determine the context in which family history is recorded and changed, or should I say, amended, over time.
Similarly we might argue that we know a great deal about extant parish records, their limitations and shortcomings. Are we likely to discover more records in the future and, if so, where? The drive to digitise current records is to be welcomed but is the danger that people will simply rely on transcriptions rather than seek out original documents?
The drive to professionalise genealogical research was well addressed by Dr Bruce Durie of the University of Strathclyde and I plan to return to this topic. Suffice to say I place myself at the spectrum which supports greater professionalism in research, with its concomitant obligations and responsibilities to fellow researchers and clients.
The Alec Tritton session on social networking seemed very well attuned to the conference theme and I plan to try to fully exploit the learning from this session.
Else Churchill's session on the long 18th century was a fine exposition; it is to be greatly hoped that all the necessary volunteers and other resources are found to help achieve the ambitious plans to make more widely available the treasures of the Society of Genealogists archives.
I agree that we need to be professional in our research, an approach I have always encouraged. If only the mainstream Universities would see family history as a bona fide subject rather than treating it as a "something retired people potter about with" subject - we need academic recognition to move forward, I think.
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