Genealogy CDs that I have at home

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Thomas MacEntee on July 22, 2009 at 2:25pm

I too have some great CDs with data but a word of caution: do you have the data backed up? My concern with CDs is the quality of the media used - CDs are not intended to last forever and can degrade.

I am always worried as to whether or not I've "future proofed" my data, meaning have I ensured that it will be accessible 1 year, 5 years or even 20 years from now?

Permalink Reply by M. Diane Rogers on July 22, 2009 at 5:38pm

Good points, Paul & Thomas. That's one reason I have been sorry to see the gradual moving away from microfilm & microfiche by family history groups - microforms last longer. Still there's no denying how much easier it is to make CDs.

Right now I am sitting in the BC Genealogical Society Library - next to a cabinet full of CDs, old & new, which are used all the time. Great info on them, for sure.

But, I don't know that I've backed up all my older data CDs at home - another Wednesday project!

Permalink Reply by Alan Phillips on July 22, 2009 at 5:44pm

As a reseller of over 11,000 genealogy products, including 5000 data CDs, and publisher of over 1500 CDs to date, I can say that the great majority of these are not online. Some, including some of our own CDs, are with marketers such as World Vital Records, Ancestry and British Data Archive, but the greater number aren't online at all, and many never will be.

The other points raised by Paul are also valid. It is often much easier and quicker to navigate and browse a CD. Also page images (scanned books etc.) are often much high quality. Currently many scanned books on World Vital Records and Ancestry are inferior quality to CDs, though WVR at least are addressing that issue right now.

Online resources are enormously valuable. But no one can seriously do genealogy without tapping into much more that is on CD, microfiche and books. Genealogy societies and libraries will continue to be the major place to do much genealogy. Most will have significant holdings of data CDs, microfiche, books, manuscripts,indexes etc. - not mention subscriptions to more online collections than most individuals can afford - and all the other expertise and benefits societies bring.

Alan, Phillips, Gould Genealogy

Permalink Reply by Carole Riley on July 22, 2009 at 6:11pm

I am responsible for installing new CDs on the server at the library of the Society of Australian Genealogists. We have just implemented a new server and for the first time have been able to run applications on the server instead of on the individual PCs used by the members.

We have a collection of over 650 CDs, of which perhaps 130 run applications as opposed to Word, Excel, or PDF documents that just need to be displayed in a viewer. Of these 130 applications there were about 20 that we could not get to work. Most of them are just old software, with instructions for Windows 3.1 on the covers, and some were just not meant to be run on a server. So it's not just the issue of the instability of the medium that we have to worry about, but also programs that will not work under new operating systems.

Even where the data is now available online it is still often preferable to use the CD. In Australia our internet speeds are not what they could be and the tedium of paging through a digitised book online, page by page, is extreme. I started looking into my American ancestor a year or two ago and I was thrilled to find that the Nantucket Vital Records before 1850 was available on World Vital Records, but I was even more thrilled when I found I could buy the CD and have the full PDFs on my laptop.

Carole Riley
Sydney, Australia