Hi Rob
Great synopsis of the group Rob - well done and thank you for this group
keeping going.
Gillian
-----Original Message-----
From: dps-chat-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:dps-chat-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Rob Nelson, Perth WA
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 6:58 AM
To: ALL <dps-chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [dps-chat] PLEASE READ: Now we are 100 !!!!
G'day ALL ...
Thanx for putting yourselves out to help get this show back on the road!
Just over 100 of you are now successfully subscribed and CHATTING!
More importantly, this morning I woke up to messages about family history
AND was delighted to see replies coming in.
The response (mostly PRIVATE) has been overwhelming and has made the rather
huge effort worthwhile. This is our third incarnation as a group and some
old timers are still alive, physically, and interested to see how this group
is travelling.
(I didn't send out invites to Shyama Peebles and Des Hanson even though they
were still subbed to the old RootsWeb list. Thoughts go out to them and the
growing number of other oldies who have joined the lists that we genies so
frequently search!)
We originally started as a group using the Dark Closet bulletin board run by
Tony and Sue Downs when the FidoNet operated globally on the UseNet.
Our second incarnation began on the new-fangled internet when Roger Atkinson
at Murdoch University was investigating the public use of the new internet
and agreed to host us on his Cleo and Carmen servers.
Soon after that, Unix-based internet evolved into high level language and
Mosaic and Netscape appeared as web browsers and Eudora was used as an email
program. (I confess, that I am still using Eudora and am tapping out this
message on that program right now!)
I continued recruiting any genies I spotted who had WA-based interests OR
who seemed to be living in WA. We continued having 'in-the-flesh'
house meetings so we could put 'faces-to-the-names' and have show and tell
gatherings that the internet couldn't provide.
We became an internet-based genie society and promoted the growing use of
computers in family history research.
Reading Sharon's message on TROVE newspaper researching and other's messages
on cemetery and BDM searches brought back memories of hours spent at
libraries, LDS family history centres and the genie societies with fiche and
microfilm readers AND, heaven forbid, books, newspapers and other primary
source material.
As a group, we espoused the principal of reciprocal research and embraced
members from throughout the globe. We could help them with local stuff while
they helped us, or someone else, with stuff from their part of the world ...
the ultimate Barter Card system where money didn't have to change hands.
We strongly believed in FREE data and actively tried to carefully create
on-line data bases that would help genies then and now. Our web pages grew
and the info was put on-line free of charge and readily accessible.
We progressed from the old-time hand-written and typed records to those that
were fiched and filmed and then we started to lose interest when big
commercial and government organisations came on the scene and sought to
control our information or just rip it off, often inaccurately.
Sharon and Shirley still tell me that the biggest sort of complaint they get
about the Reverse Marriage Index is that our records don't agree with the
later records that appear on Ancestry.
Ours are the correct ones, in most cases, and the Ancestry people forgot to
take into account that later records didn't appear on a different fiche for
each year, hence the complaints that our records are out by a year!
I'm not promising to keep such a high profile as I did in the past, but I
still reserve the right to be 'list-dad' and will moderate this list.
Like I did towards the end of the bulletin board days, when I went took some
personal time to explore the new-fangled internet, I took a timeout about
six years ago when my mum died and realised that I'd put my own life and
family on hold for too long.
Now that I've reached a semi-retired stage of life and a bit more time is
available, I feel it's time I became a bit more involved.
It's interesting to hear that others have echoed a similar reaction and I
look forward to hearing from our other mates from the past who, to be
honest, surprised me and took up the offer to GO ANOTHER ROUND with the
Perth DPS ... (often in DIGEST mode).
That being said, from the ashes of dps-chat @ Dark Closet and RootsWeb, let
us welcome in <dps-chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> and hope for a long, happy and
fruitful experience.
As always, cheers for now, ROB!!
"Rob Nelson, Perth WA" <rnelson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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