T—Thankful for Technology

from here
When I first began family history work back in the ninety's, I had to look up the census records on films.  First you would figure out the “soundex” code (Soundex is a phonetic algorithm for indexing names by sound).  Next you would have to go to an index film, using the Soundex code.  Once you searched through the index and you found the person you would have then find the film that your person was recorded on.   

There were times, especially when researching many family members from the same area it was just as easy to look through the whole census film page by page.  Which I have done for Rock Springs and Kemmerer, Wyoming.
Even though search engines frustrate me, I love technology and how it has advanced family history work AND how it saves me time!

P.S.  The Soundex code for Roberts is:  R163!

Comments

  1. Adam Call RobertsJanuary 23, 2012 at 9:22 PM

    I *am* old enough to remember school trips to the library in school to learn how to use microfilm. But even then, we had computers.

    I've been able to break through two major brick walls on my mother's side simply by randomly googling different variations of a person's name and key terms over and over and over again until something magically pops up... probably not too scientific, but still not something possible just 20 years ago!

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