bennison@clt.DEC (Victor Bennison - DTN 381-2156) (01/01/86)
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I've been wondering why I haven't been receiving flames from people
out there about the somewhat negative things I've been saying about
ROOT-BBS, and without even being very familiar with it. So far only
the poor operator has been standing up for himself, and I was beginning
to feel kind of sorry for him. Finally, today, someone sent me a note
supporting ROOTS-BBS (direct mail, not posted to net.roots).
It being the first day of the new year, I want to clean the slate and
put a new face on this, while still trying to make my initial point,
which was never meant to be a put-down of ROOTS-BBS to begin with, though
the exchange may have deteriorated into unjust criticism in the end.
I support what !rooter is doing. He is helping people do genealogy
by using computer technology. After looking over the list of available
files, indices, etc., I think there is much there that may be useful.
ROOTS-BBS is adding to the total catalog of resources that are available
to people doing genealogy, and that is good and to be admired. I think
!rooter is up against some very difficult technical problems in growing
his service into what I suspect he dreams of it becoming. But I certainly
hope he doesn't give up. And even as limited as his service is right now,
I believe !rooter when he says that people are being helped by ROOTS-BBS
every day.
Now that that has been said, let me again, and I hope for the last time,
make the only point I ever really wanted to make with regards to ROOTS-BBS
or, for that matter, any other small genealogical database (you'll find
quite a few advertized in the Genealogical Helper, all charging a search
fee, unlike ROOTS-BBS). Here's the point:
WHENEVER YOU SEARCH A DATABASE THAT IS SMALL RELATIVE TO IT'S CLAIMED
SCOPE, THEN YOUR EXPECTATIONS OF MAKING A HIT SHOULD BE LOW.
I would say that ROOTS-BBS's surname database has a "claimed" scope
of all US families (or more). That scope includes hundreds of millions
of families through history. So that 10,000 entries makes it a small
database with respect to it's scope. I don't want to quibble about exact
definitions or numbers here, I think you understand what I'm saying. I think
I'm in the ball-park. Now if 50 or 100 people search the database on a
given day, it is probably not too unlikely that a few will get a possible
lead, and a few out of every 1000 may get a great find. I don't deny that
at all. But even if 100 out of 1000 get a good find, that would still give
an individual caller only one chance in ten. When I searched the Mormon's
surname registry, which has hundreds of thousands of names, I looked for
about 20 surnames. I found one possible lead. I wrote to that person and
it turned out we weren't related. I wasn't surprised. My expectations
were low to begin with. And so all I really wanted to say was that you
should set your expectations according to the probability of the situation
and not get discouraged unnecessarily. I think that novice genealogists
tend to grossly underestimate the size of the populations they are dealing
with.
Finally, I want to point out that ROOTS-BBS contains both some general
information that could be helpful to almost anyone, and some rather
specialized information that could be very useful to the right person.
For example, if you have ancestors in Charles County, Maryland or
Titus County, Texas, then by all means dial in. I may dial in to check
out the general information on Irish research when I next start into one
of my Irish lines. Or I may go down to the Mormon branch library and read
their brochures on Irish genealogy. Or I may do both. It depends on how
rich I'm feeling.
Vick Bennison
...decvax!decwrl!rhea!tools!bennison
(603) 881-2156
P.S. To the person who suggested that net.roots isn't free because
somebody pays the phone bills: There are many services in life that appear
free, but aren't really. And as with all of them, I can't tell you if I
would subscribe to net.roots (or net.anything) if I had to pay the phone
bill out of my own pocket. That is mostly because I don't know how much it
would cost. But to be honest, the main reason I am willing to use net.roots,
but much less willing to use ROOTS-BBS, it that with the former my wife
doesn't see the bill.