It is not what everyone else is doing. Today I went to do research at the Archives and kept busy looking for information of clients. It seems every time a Genealogy related show is on the TV we can expect a huge influx of people requesting information.
That time is now. With Who Do You Think You Are and the program on PBS with Dr Gates the envelopes are coming fast and furious. The hardest part of the job is I imagine that everyone thinks we have everything digitized and we do not have anything digitized.
We pour over records that can be up to one hundred and fifty years old. A lot of records are missing due to a calamity or who knows why. The paper is old and ink can be very faded.
A lot of people do not do their preliminary research. They will send a request stating their ancestor lived in XYZ County and can we find their records.
You really have to know where they lived and than perhaps we can narrow down the church they attended. Like in real estate you have to know the location.
I missed the hoopla and frustration of searching the 1940 census. Searching every page line by line is not my ideas of fun, in fact, I find it frustrating. I will wait a bit and then see if I can tackle searching. I have volunteered to do indexing and perhaps this week I will download a batch and get started. Doing one page at a time is do-able.
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