I think they're great for genealogy. I've moved interstate from where I was born. Digital cameras used by a variety of very kind listers have given me photos of gravestones of my relatives in places I would not have got for years. I don't have to wait for snail mail for them to arrive - they're sent to me the same day they're taken.
Re Digital cameras. 74Have you had any luck finding a good lab to do decent black and white or sepia prints Barbara? I have tried lots of digital labs, black & white prints range from brown & white...
My brother in Qld is working with our only surviving relative from my father's generation on our family history. He's taken on the spot at our Aunt's place hundreds of photos of what to her are very valued items and which she doesn't feel happy about letting out of her possession. We are a scattered family, two brothers in Qld, myself and another brother interstate and another brother overseas, but we can all have copies of those photos showing the new material he has collected on the evening of my brother's visit to our Aunt. He uses a card reader, copies them to his PC and hey presto, we all have access to them within an hour of his getting back home.
I've also found digital photos really good in other situations. I have posted a couple of digital photos to overseas genealogy boards, one of the family home in Ayrshire Scotland and had the address and current occupants of the home provided to me to make contact with. I had a photocopy of a bounty immigration form from 1840 which I posted to an Inverness Sco board querying the place of origin of one of my early arrivals and have had responses on that. This would not have been possible if I had not been able to take digital photographs of the original documentation - one a postcard of the town in Ayrshire and the other a poor photocopy of 1840 immigration records.
The other thing they're really good for is subsequently sending information along to family members. I can attach photos to an email and send them interstate and overseas and have a discussion with my brothers about them the same day. It adds an immediacy to sharing genealogy with family members and allows us all to be engaged in the process of family history in a way which we've all really, and I think quite unexpectedly, enjoyed. There is only one brother, in Qld, who doesn't have internet access. He gets to see everything much later than the rest of us and has noted that he wished he had access to a PC.
You can also fiddle with digital photos to enhance aspects you want to study, which we've done with photos of very old, difficult to read, letters and other documentation to blow up parts we're trying to understand and can't otherwise.
So to my mind they can be a real buttet.
Anne Whiteford
