The Internet and the History of Auchencairn

This presentation was prepared for a meeting of the Auchencairn History Society in Auchencairn Village Hall, 13th February 2002

The full text of this presentation is online at http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/bookshelf/courses/localhistory

I'm going to start by talking generally about what the Internet is, and then talk about a few resources which are particularly relevent to Rerrick history; I'm then going to talk a bit about how you use the resources of the Internet to find further resources, and wind up by trying to encourage you to think about what information you could provide.

Understanding the Internet

The Internet is an open, heterogenous public network

• It has no centre, and no central authority
  • no-one is responsible for providing information
  • anyone can provide information
• Its standards are established by voluntary bodies
  • the Internet Engineering Task Force
  • the Internet Society
  • the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c)
• It is the largest single information system the world has ever seen

Who provides local history information?

• Local historians
• Central government
• Academic institutions
• Others

Resources provided by local historians

Resources provided by local historians (often amateurs) are very patchy and of very varying quality, but the best are excellent. We're very lucky in that the next parish has one of the best.

• Auchencairn History Society
  • Hugh Paton's History of Auchencairn
• Daphne Brooke
  • Placename data
• James Bell
  • Buittle Parish Home Page
  • Kith and Kin Genealogy
  • Stewartry Kirkyards Illustrated
• Dumfries and Galloway Family History Society
  • Nothing useful
• What happens when local sites are no longer maintained?

The Auchencairn History Society

http://www.auchencairn.org.uk/history/history.htm

• Presently just a page in the Auchencairn village web site
• And the text of a booklet produced twenty years ago
• There's plenty of room on the server for more...
  • What can you do?

Daphne Brooke

http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~daphne/

Raw placename data, still being edited; user interface still being developed. Not as exciting as you may hope.

James Bell

http://www.buittle.freeserve.co.uk/

This is a real treasure trove, and an excellent example of what can be done. A tremendous number of documents relevent to the parish have been transcribed and published.

• Early postcards
• Census returns
• Valuation rolls
• Births, marriages and deaths
• And it's all searchable

What happens when sites are no longer maintained

http://www.archive.org/

• These sites are provided by amateurs
  • People die, lose interest, can't afford it any more
  • How do you get at the information?
• Example: The Auchencairn History Society page links to a useful short History of Galloway
  • at www.swscotland.com
  • but that domain doesn't exist any more
  • how can we find that information?
• The Wayback Machine
  • Tries to archive all static public pages on the World Wide Web
  • Back to (about) 1996
  • The old www.swscotland.com pages are here

Anything you've ever said in public on the Internet is still there somewehere... even if you regret it!

Central Government

Resources provided by Government aren't as comprehensive or useful as you'd expect; and the ones they do provide may not be free, and may not work.

• 1901 Census
  • put online with great fanfare on 1st January
  • taken off again a week later because software couldn't cope with demand
  • still not available
• Scottish Record Office
  • has parish records for whole of Scotland
  • has census records including 1901
  • costs £6.00 per 30 pages in 24 hours

Academic Institutions

• National Library of Scotland
  • few online resources
  • not easy to search
  • triumph of design over function
  • but plans to make more available in time...
• Old and New Statistical Accounts
  • published by the University of Edinburgh
  • full facsimile text
  • well indexed

Other sources

• Genuki
• Usenet
• Search engines

Genuki

http://www.genuki.org.uk

• major UK Genealogy resource
• advice
• links
• information on Rerrick

Usenet

• ancient, sprawling, unwieldy, anarchic online discussion system
• older than the Internet
• treat with caution
  • not all the advice you get on Usenet is good
  • newcomers ('newbies') who don't understand the conventions ('netiquette') may be treated with hostility and rudeness
  • nevertheless a very valuable information resource
• searchable via Google Groups (formerly DejaNews)
• useful groups include
  • soc.genealogy.uk+ireland
  • scot.general
  • soc.culture.scottish

Search Engines

http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/bookshelf/courses/search

• the most useful tools for finding information on the Internet
• a very big subject
• fortunately I've already done a presentation on it, which is here

Conclusion

• The Internet is a public space
  • the information resources on it are provided by all sorts of people
  • some of the best resources are provided by amateurs
• What can you provide?