Off and on over the past year I've been reading Paul Allen's blog. In case you aren't aware of it, he was one of the founders of Ancestry.com, which he left five years ago, and he is the driving force behind World Vital Records.
It's kind of interesting to get a 'behind the scenes' view of starting a company, though I'll admit it can be a bit dry reading at times! Still, the insights provided are enlightening. His announcement of the World Vital Records Partnerships shows his enthusiasm for what he is doing and how he hopes to help improve the world of genealogy research. These partnerships should help increase traffic to the Family History Centers and will make more records accessible to more people than ever before.
His blog deals for the most part with the business aspect of genealogy and with business in general, so it's not a "genealogy" blog (posts that are categorized as "genealogy" can be found here).
As stated in a previous post, these are indeed exciting times for genealogists and family researchers! However, I feel that the news of this "explosion" in genealogy resources to come must be tempered somewhat with caution. It's going to take time and not all records will be available (at least, not in my lifetime). It's just not feasible when you consider how many records there are and the various kinds of records that are kept. We also need to keep in mind that that is a business and though the motives and intent may be good, the bottom line will be profit. That is probably what is driving 'The Generations Network' to make the decisions they have in the recent past. We need to be optimistic and hope that these new companies and partnerships will keep the needs and desires of their customers in mind - accessible records at a relatively low cost. Collaboration is good, competition is better. I applaud Paul Allen and World Vital Records for their partnership with FamilySearch and all of the other companies that have announced partnerships in the last few days and am very much looking forward to using all these resources.
1 comment:
Nice post Becky! Vital Records
Post a Comment
The ability to comment has been turned off for all blog posts effective 21 May 2018. Kinexxions has been inactive for more than two years and most comments have come to me directly via email from readers but more than a few were simply spam. My desire is to keep the blog available to the public since there is value in what has been published, particularly posts dealing with family history.
I am still extremely interested in hearing from readers who might be related and have questions or simply want contact with a distant cousin. Please contact me directly via email at kinexxions@gmail.com
This action is also being taken partially due to the General Data Protection Regulation aka "GDPR" going into effect on 25 May 2018. Even though it is a regulation implemented by the European Union that primarily affects businesses and corporations, it governs how data about people can be used. That includes comments left on blog posts, thus the ability to comment is no longer available.
Becky Wiseman - - kinexxions@gmail.com
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.