James Tanner -- Responding to 21 May, Approach to Genealogical Research.

  James Tanner -- Responding to 21 May, Approach to Genealogical Research.

I sure missed meeting you recently but health issues in family eliminated my arriving to hear you talk.

You just always are so in tune to my thoughts, it is like we already had this conversation and seem to
think along the same lines. I could never post it as elegantly as you do though.

You have no idea how excited I was to see this topic and done by you. I just did a presentation on
who we are and how we became whom we are.  Needless to say I started in Africa and used FTdna.com's map with their permission.

As the modern methods seem to swamp the older standby methods sometimes we have to go back to the original method and prove it out.  With one line I had going to the Mayflower group, I did the footwork for years and contacted many people before a computer was functioning for laymen.
The joy was I was able to get the information, yes it takes time and diligence and determination.
 Last our group did DNA data and it confirmed all the information we had gathered.   Hurray

Not every name will do this and I would suspect it be less than 20 %  that does but it is slowly rising to higher percentages.

Somethings about computers and humans frightens me.  So many have no internet yet in the USA.
Yes, this is so true. Yet these are the people that generally have more information and accuracy than those in a big city.

Being exposed to this about 8 years ago by flying to Michigan, not even upper Michigan but our son's area had minimal to no internet service and what service offered was over the average persons budget. I used the library's system for two urgent matters. I received a call saying data was sent.
Our area had no internet. Library was accommodating, thankfully.  Today, yes they have internet
available.  It still costs far more than in our region.

 Family in Montana has no internet in some areas. Some do but cost is prohibitive.
I recall PRES OBAMA got on TV one day and was notifying American's of something and said he was doing it via email and the internet.  I wonder how many million never got the message. So what other areas are still skimpy with internet?

As a deeply interested history and  geological person, I have followed our discoveries of how old they (scientists) think we are.  Only last week they posted a new date line and found (released) new data on we are much older than they last thought.

Being a Geologist was my 2nd choice if I ever got to a University.

Now we have groups that have large amount of members but as stated by your post. Not many in most of the groups are modern day up to speed. I myself have never taken a formal
computer class but have set in classes as taught by instructors to master more skills. I have paid for assistance to learn more information on computer usage.  I also had a great son that really hand taught me as he learned in college.

Worse, when I taught computer to others in 1974-5, all that is not viable. The concept took off and left many, many people behind.

A friend was in the other day and she said ,"I did all these things on the computer when working and when you decide to go back to it, very little is the same." She then stated she need a brush up class for modern computers.

Our society runs a basic  computer class, we also highlight specific topics and then we have a class to talk about reaching various sites and how to do a gedcom and other activities.  Attendance is spotty at best, especially considering we are members of over 80 people.

Those that attend are making forward progress, but if they do not practice what shown they are not able to remember for next event.  Myself included, so I know it is true.

Some of this applies to our age I suspect. I was taught to teach students how to use a computer long, long before I had one.  By the time I could afford a computer much of what I had originally learned was obsolete.  Worse we were taught a computer can be upgraded and you won't have to worry about replacing it often. That was most of the teachers concerns, was cost and efficiency.

So as we move forward we must go back and pick up the scattered pieces that were left to wither and die.

 I believe that is a must for those of us that that have moved forward.

We are a lot older a species than is yet determined I am sure.  To many things point to a rebuilding of whom we were before and us coming back to it now moving ahead.

After all the writings on the stones in Wisconsin are not Indian as they kept telling people but they belong to early nordic  people that were here 200 + years before Virginia and Massachusetts and Florida.  The Indians were here a very long time and were very knowledged of our environmental
needs to be able to survive conditions.   Rotate where lived, rotate crops, do not deplete supplies, move and keep alert to changes, share when given a chance.  Nor did they waste like we do.
Almost no part of an animal was wasted. A use was found for it.

Thanks for your blog post.