A Message from the Resident Genealogist

I have been giving help online for over 20 years and this site was started in 2001 (at the same time as Wikipedia) to help people find their Hertfordshire ancestors at a time when there was very little local and family history online.

A lot has happened since. Twenty years ago nearly all the information you needed to carry out family history research was unindexed on paper or microfilm and the aim of the site was to help people to find it. Now nearly all the key records are online and most town and villages have web pages that contain at least some local history. As a result the way the site is used has changed. I get far fewer beginner queries - and far more from historians working on specials projects - and also many requests for higher resolution pictures.

Over the years the site has grown enormously and the software and the computer which supports it, are now obsolete. Old age, including my role as a carer, means that I cannot do as much as I once did, while the increasing number of commercial sites means that I can no longer keep up with all the new online sources. A complete restructuring of the site would be unrealistically expensive.

A review of the situation shows that the site contains much useful reference material which needs to continue to be available online. In addition there is a queue of similar information waiting to go online if I can find time allows. As a result I have decided to stop providing what amounts to a free help service for beginners.

I have set the following priorities for 2019:

• The site no longer has top call on my time.

• Basic maintenance, including corrections and necessary updates.

• Use the Newsletter for reporting changes and other relevant news.

• Complete and put online existing incomplete draft material.

• Add new post cards and pictures - and continue work on selected photographers & publishers. Medium resolution images (width 1024 pixels) to be made available where appropriate (click on pictures with blue border).

•  Consider arrangement for long term archive.

While I will still respond to serious Ask Chris questions - for instance from historians writing books - I will no longer consider routine family history queries which add little to the site or where the questioner could find the answer online themselves.

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