bennison@clt.DEC (Victor Bennison - DTN 381-2156) (12/23/85)
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At the request of the operator of the ROOTS-BBS, at least I think that's
who it was, I dialed into the system to take a look. I am fairly familiar
with BBS's so it didn't take me any time at all to figure out the system.
It took me 24 minutes of long distance charges from New Hampshire to
California to do the following:
1. Login, set password, etc.
2. Search for the name LOOP in all the available indices. This alone
took the system about 10 minutes. There were no Loop's found.
3. Search for the soundex L100 and for the name DENT in the vital
records index. No matches.
4. Start to leave a message, but change my mind and abort.
5. Logout
I stand by everything I have said before. This is a very low probability,
high cost way of doing genealogy. The operator's heart is in the right place,
but I think he would be doing a larger service to us if he did not attempt
a small solution to a very large problem, but tackled instead a more
tractable problem. For example, it would be very useful to have lists of
resources (libraries, genealogical societies, historical societies) listed
according to county and/or state. It could give the address and phone number
of each. The Genealogical Helper publishes such a list yearly, but it could
be expanded to include County Clerks, cemeteries, or whatever. People could
call in and leave new resources that they've found. There could be one list
for each County, and the caller could specify a search by state that would
include all the county lists for that state. A list like this with 10,000
entries would be a valuable tool for genealogical research. Or he could
accumulate and provide downloading for public domain software useful for
genealogical research. Perhaps he already does that, I didn't get into the
downloading part because 1) I was watching the clock tick off the dollars and
2) I don't own a personal computer.
The BBS's stated purpose is to get people together who are studying the same
surname. Am I to get excited if I find someone else who is researching the
name Smith? And as I pointed out before, I know 45 people who are researching
the rare name Loop, and I can't link up to any of them. But if you do want
to find other people who are researching your surname(s) then go down to the
local Mormon branch library and look in their microfiche surname registry
which is updated every three months. (You will find several entries for Loop's
only one of them mine.)
But if you like messing around with BBS's and you got the bucks to drop on the
phone bill, then by all means give it a whirl. As for myself, I've got better
things to do with my time and money.
Vick Bennison
...decvax!decwrl!rhea!tools!bennison
(603) 881-2156