BYU is hosting their conference on Family History and Genealogy in Salt Lake City this week. On Wednesday, Curt Witcher, manager of the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, spoke of what he believes are the coming ‘dark ages’ of genealogy. The jist of his talk is that while we’re busy digitizing every old record in sight and technology is speeding along, we are either losing or not creating those types of records today for the future generations. (Link to story in the Mormon Times is here.)

Thanks to Marian Pierre-Louis, who has several blogs and can also be found on twitter @marianpl, for pointing out this article on Facebook and, in not so many words, challenging all genealogy bloggers to voice their thoughts. Mr. Witcher does make excellent points. Libraries are cutting back on hours (and staff). Choices are being made to discard some records by libraries as well as government at all levels. And really, when was the last time you wrote a letter or kept a journal on paper?

However, I don’t think the dark ages are necessarily around the corner. Granted, today we are not creating some of the records that are currently used in researching genealogy and, more broadly, family histories. But I don’t think genealogical research of the future will look like anything we would recognize today. Who would’ve imagined even 25-years ago that you could sit from home in the middle of the night and look at census records or newspapers from across the country and years? Only a visionary few.

Decades from now, I think our ancestors will be looking at our tweets and Facebook pages; tweets for sure will be in a big honkin’ database at the Library of Congress, we know this. They’ll be examining whose ‘walls’ we wrote on, what we said to them, and wondering how we are connected to those people. And–oh!–the pictures. They’ll search our digital newspapers and blogs for mentions of us. And I do believe that vital records will most likely be better preserved (accessible might be another question) as every person, business, and government agency is more aware of protecting some records than ever before, digitizing them, and storing in multiple locations.

Records, as we know, have always been damaged or discarded, much to the dismay modern genealogists. Or, the records weren’t even created in the first place. I only know of one of my ancestors who may have kept a diary, but for all we know it is lost. I do have some letters, but my ancestors were farmers and apparently not the pack-rat I am. Or maybe they just didn’t like each other enough to write.

So, back to Mr. Witcher’s point. I don’t think we’re headed for the genealogy dark ages, but he is right in that it’s up to each one of us to carry history forward. While we are digging around in the past, we shouldn’t forget to preserve the present.

Perhaps one way to remember to do that is every time you can’t find a piece of desired information for an ancestor, record that fact/anticdote/story/etc. for yourself and/or family and file it away. This can be done either on paper or electronically. And, just as important, make sure you have someone or somewhere for all those papers or files to go when you are no longer around to be their caretaker. Too many records are lost because there isn’t someone in a given generation who cares about them.

So, save your descendants from sitting in front of their version of a computer at 1:00am (or 2:00) silently cursing their ancestor’s lack of ability to leave a paper trail. Be the ancestor you wish you had.

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