Something Old, Something New…

Even in the past, things change. Not events, they either happened or they didn’t. What changes is how we remember the past and how we preserve the records of the past. If you look at an image of a record at home on your computer screen, you are very likely looking at a digital image of a microfilmed version of a copy made by hand or typewriter when the original register became so damaged that it was clear it had a very limited amount of its lifespan remaining. So what are you looking at? A 21st century digital scan of a 20th century microfilm, of a 19th century typed copy of an 18th century manuscript record book, which is, in fact recording events that were originally stored in someone’s memory, even if ever so briefly. The technology changes, hopefully the information does not.

The original version of this website is something I put together in 2009 and used a theme that I started writing myself in 2007. I’ve been proud that I managed to code something that still worked over a decade later. But, something like that 18th century record book, that site and that theme were in need of copying over to something modern. Twice in the last few months I’ve had to jump in like an archival conservator and work to preserve something that was clearly falling apart. A few weeks ago, my wife, fresh from adding a webshop to her blog (her US blog & webshop is here), said at dinner that she had everything needed to overhaul mine in her head and wondered if it wouldn’t be a good time for her to get it done. A few days later, my site reminded me of her offer by losing it’s background and an embarrassingly large amount of its formatting. Like an old record register, it was on the verge of unreadability. 

Thankfully, there was no need to retype the original, microfilm it, and then digitize that. She could skip those steps. Only the image database needs to be recreated, so please be patient until we have correctly linked all images in the blog posts. But here we are, faster than I thought possible, with a website* that is something that it hasn’t been in years, modern. Sometimes things need to be changed just to keep the important thing, the information, the same. It is also perhaps a reminder that even our personal records need to be backed up and kept in a format that is up to date so that in the future our descendants can understand the past because we kept it in a way that is modern for the present. Something old, something new… Welcome in to find out what is old and what is new!

Something old, something new... A screen shot of the new website for the Personal Past Genealogy Blog
Something old, something new… The Personal Past website has got an overhaul. Old genealogy blog posts are preserved, but in a new and more modern looking website

* For the curious, the website is implemented on WordPress with the theme Astra Pro

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