Pros and Cons of the Electronic Era

Let's run a little comparison check. In the early 1900's, the group of spinners took their equipment outside and a picture of them was taken in the snow because there was not flash cameras. That camera must have been the talk of Rosewood!

The early lives of the children of Lloyd and Ella were photographed outside. It almost seemed like they loved the outdoors! Later, these children would take pictures of their children with cameras with flash bulbs, and later built in flash with automatic winding! PROGRESS!

Their children are taking pictures with digital cameras and sending them without the labor of have pictures processed. INSTANT! MARVELOUS! UNBELIEVABLE!

Except, of course, if you are in a remote area taking pictures of graves and the battery fails. Which teaches all of us doing genealogy to have a loaded other camera with us. Even of it is a wind yourself the low action film. After all, just how much movement does a grave have?

The next comparison is correspondence. We know from previous posted that Knute Ranum actually wrote a letter to someone in Norway. We know from previous posts that if you try to dry stamps by rubbling them on your head, they will stick. How many of you have actually sat down and written a letter recently? I have done it once of late and found my brain two paragraphs ahead; it was painfully slow but in this case, I felt the need to be personal.

We have talked about handwriting before and as Ryen mentioned, computer skills are now more important. And I will agree, until you are in a hotel somewhere which advertises WiFi and the computer isn't sitting on top of a router that keeps you connected.

The next comparison is telephones. The neighbors had a crank phone in the '40's. We had a modern phone which also hung on the wall. In the early news papers as well as pictures of Thief River Falls telephones were available. Businesses listed there numbers, one was 62. Pictures show telephone poles.

The Anderson children had the option of buying their phones! Ours was called the secretary. It was that 1970 orange with a cork board and a box inside to put the newspaper. How unique to have a phone with a long cord. Ours was fifteen feet; I stretched it to twenty.

How 'uptown' to have a cordless phone and walk about without a cord! And answering machines without tape! By this time every phone was your own purchase.

The cell phone my boss first had was the size of a shoe box. Can you believe that? When the smaller ones came out he cautioned us not to use it much because it cost 10 cents a minute. It was an on call only phone. Try getting in some remote area in the middle of the night with no signal.

And so we are now the cell phone society. Ever watch two people in a cafe talking on each a phone? Are they talking to each other or someone else? Do you carry your phone to the bathroom? Do you 'never leave home without it'? Oops, that is a charge card.

And so, once again, while having a detailed discussion, I could only get a signal if I stood with my nose against the window. I turned my head twice and twice lost the party. Yes, there is an old reliable on the desk as I keyboard. It is hard wired to the wall.

I say to all of you to be ready to use a pen and paper, a hard wired phone, and a camera with no frills in your adventures of finding ancestors! Or by a converter and plug it into the cigarette lighter socket. Let me see, one for the phone, one for the camera, one for the computer, and one for the GPS to find your way to that little cemetery 20 miles down a gravel road to a priceless image of days gone by.

And one more thing, put on your glasses before you put those little packets in your coffee, what you think is creamer will most likely be sugar.

Have a sweet day

e