There is a lot of talk within the genealogy community at the moment about how to engage and welcome younger members. This is a subject close to my heart, as I have two children that I would love to encourage into this fabulous hobby.
Identifying high-level issues with accessibility, bias or cost is one way we in the community can help. Organisations have a duty of care towards all their members, and that includes those with differing needs. That’s a top-down approach and requires a reasonable amount of insitutional change, which can be slow to take hold.
The other thing we can all do, regardless of our standing in genealogical societies or organisations, is talk to new and younger genealogists, discover their needs, help them, welcome them, and continue to think about ways in which their view of the subject is different to our own, and how we can all benefit from these differing viewpoints.
Communication is key
All members of our community can benefit from better communication methods.
Think of all the times you have been stuck with a brickwall, and another genealogist has given you a clue to break it down. This is not age-dependent, as we all have different skill sets that can be of help to each other.
But age can be a difference that we need to consider.
We moved from letters to phone calls to emails, and from emails to forum posts to instant messaging in a relatively short space of time. Technology just doesn’t stop moving forward, and if a community is still sending letters, while younger members are all about the instant messages, then that is a digital divide that needs to be bridged.
So, the more people you know, the more help you can get when you reach those inevitable dead ends. But if you are not communicating in the same way, then you’ll never meet them. And likewise, they will not meet you and benefit from your knowledge and expertise.
Have you tried Discord?
Trying out new methods of communicating with other genealogists is a great way to meet new people, discover new resources, and take a small step towards becoming an even more welcoming and engaging community.
Discord is one example, a platform that I thought was just for videogaming voice chat. But it actually hosts vibrant and diverse worldwide communities of people with shared interests. There are several genealogy text-based chat servers, within which you may find channels for language, geography, culture, or time-period specific discussion.
It even has brickwall channels, with the collaborative expertise of hundreds or even thousands of genealogists available to help solve your longest-standing puzzles.
Perhaps it is more comfortable to stick with what we know.
There are many, many other ways to communicate in this fast-moving, digital world. And keeping up with all of them can be dizzying.
It can be easier to stay away from the new, to content ourselves with our own traditional methods of discussing and socialising within the genealogical community.
But I would encourage you to think about what you can OFFER, as well as how you might benefit. Is it worth stepping outside your comfort zone to encourage the next generation of genealogists? To make connections? To perhaps learn something new?
