Why I use computers for genealogy

There are still a significant number of people who use only paper copies
of their genealogical data. The reasons for doing so, run from a lack
of computer knowledge, to comments about being better able to visualize
the information on paper. I have long since learned that I do not get
into discussions with these people about using computers. It is not
productive. I was very early in adopting computers for my genealogy,
using an Apple II with a dot matrix printer. It seemed to me that given
the amount of information can more than double in each generation, there
was really no way to keep track of all those people, dates, places and
facts without either using a strict organizational structure or letting a
computer do the organizing.

Of course, my Great-grand Mother never had the opportunity to use a
computer. Everything she did, she did by hand or by typewriter. As an
aside, I was showing one of my grandsons a picture of a typewriter and
he didn't know what it was. Back to Great-grandmother and her genealogy.
In going through all the work she did for over thirty years, it became
apparent that she repeated several of the lines more than once. There
were as many as four and five copies of the same material in her files.
Even today, with very advanced computers and programs, I still have some
duplicates. But, why do I use computers? I could answer like George
Mallory, the mountain climber, because it's there. But the real reason
is more practical, computers enable me to process the huge number of
individuals that make up my database. Our family's genealogical efforts
go back several generations and I have inherited a good portion of all
the previous work. Quite frankly, without computer assistance, I would
never have completed even a first level survey during my lifetime.

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