14_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 06_007_FEATURE_GENEALOGY REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 06_007_FEATURE_GENEALOGY_15 The computer indexing of genealogical sources servers. One wants to allow public participa- and printing of paper indexes was the first tion but to deter free-riding and vandalism. You may have heard that Iceland has unusually good wave, making it all of a sudden much easier, We surely want to memorialize our ancestors, quicker, and cheaper to find information about organize our records of the past, open Icelan- genealogical records dating all the way back to the our ancestors. In the second wave, all this dic data to non-Icelandic speakers, and help information moved online and, as Internet people enjoy the time travel and detective saga age, and that Icelanders can trace their ancestry access penetrated to the average household, it work of researching their family history. became possible to research your family history to the Vikings. The truth is a bit less romantic. without having to go to the library. A Cemetery of Virtual Identities Collaborative online genealogy is likely We all know we won’t live forever but, even if to be the third wave. Imagine that we create we don’t admit it, we all wonder whether we a web page for each of our forebears. Each will be remembered forever, or at least be part phone book, the National Registry (open to abók. And then consider that there are also individual’s web page contains their name and of something that continues forever. Geneal- anyone with an Icelandic bank account), the many free genealogy web sites in the world, important dates, copies of photos and source ogy, like cemeteries, books, and other monu- online index of Icelandic newspaper obituar- sometimes created by volunteer genealogists documents, and links to spouses’, parents’, ments to peoples’ lives, are ways in which we ies, and Íslendingabók, it is possible to find and sometimes by governments who have and children’s sites. These pages are open to project peoples’ existence across the ages. out a lot about peoples’ families in Iceland. released public records. For example, copies the public so that everyone can see, add to, People who lived in the 1500s, whose This generally accepted lack of privacy stuns of England’s early birth, marriage, and death and correct each others’ work. In effect, this names don’t survive in any records, are now Americans in particular, many of whom live record indexes are available online for free would be the Wikipedia of genealogy. forgotten and lost to our collective memory. in fear that someone might find out their (www.freebmd.co.uk). Many people have had this idea at the We know they existed, but we know them mother’s maiden name. (See my article on Those who advocate free online genea- same time, and I have found at least ten dif- like fish in the sea or stalks of wheat in a personal identification numbers in Iceland in logical records argue that the information is ferent web sites which are trying to put it into field, whose individual identities we never this magazine – Issue 14, 2005.) in the public domain, that volunteer efforts practice one way or another (gencircles.com, consider. can create value without limiting access, that geneanet.org, mytrees.com, zooof.com, geni. While many people these days recoil from Genealogy Moves Onto the Internet free access makes corrections easier and leads com, ancientfaces.com, deadfred.com, rodov- the idea of being “just a number” in an identi- Genealogy is not only an Icelandic national to better quality over time, and that the for- id.org, wikitree.org, familypursuit.net, and fication system, the act of numbering someone pastime; it’s also one of the most popular hob- pay approach is greedy. Those who favour familylink.com). There are, as well, a number – and bringing them into a database – is, oddly bies in North America and Britain. While much for-pay genealogy sites argue that money is of “virtual memorials” or “web cemeteries” enough a way of giving them a name, an research is still done in libraries using books a necessary incentive that ensures the quality on the Internet (such as www.cemetery.org identity in the collective memory of humanity, and microfilm, the Internet has revolutionised of a website’s information and interface, and or catless.ncl.ac.uk/vmg). a line in the Book of the Dead. That means the field and research material is increasingly that researchers using a for-pay site still save Not surprisingly, the Mormon Church has – as long as that database and its numbering moving online. Online material is divided into money over the cost of travelling to libraries gotten interested in this idea. The church has system persists -- a sort of eternal life, though two types. There are original records which and archives to research records in person. supported genealogical research handsomely in digital form now rather than in stone. have been transcribed, scanned, or indexed, The debate between free and for-pay gene- for decades, because Mormon theology en- Indeed, we now grant individual identity such as census rolls and birth certificates. Then alogy sites is a little similar to that between courages church members to research their – and thus the same kind of eternal existence there are compiled genealogies – family trees open-source and proprietary software, and family history. The church has decided to de- in our databases and catalogues – to many that someone else has already put together by the debate about whether Wikipedia or the velop a collaborative project of its own, whose other groups of things beyond humans. We going through the original records. The 1703 Encyclopedia Britannica is a better way of working title is New FamilySearch (see labs. have long labelled sheep and cattle, we now Icelandic census is an example of an original collecting information about the world. familysearch.org). If it works well and catches earmark our cats and dogs, and we tag polar record that has been transcribed and placed Overall, in Iceland, despite the country’s on, New FamilySearch could blow the other bears and migrating birds. We assign num- online. Íslendingabók is an example of online incredible success in computerising its record ten start-up sites out of the water and become bers to books, cars, computers, and even compiled genealogy. sources and creating online compiled geneal- the world’s standard collaborative geneal- sales orders, assuring that we can distinguish Although Íslendingabók is online, only ogy databases, online access to these record ogy site, just as Wikipedia has become the one individual from the next, and that these Icelanders qualify for access. Even they may sources is really pretty tough. Only a fraction world’s standard collaborative encyclopaedia. identities will be recoverable for a long time not see all of it. Non-Icelanders, even Ameri- of these records are accessible for free, and no Harnessing the power of all the individual to come. cans and Canadians researching their Icelandic one has developed a for-pay genealogy model genealogists out there, it would create one Genealogists rescue their ancestors from ancestors, are not allowed in. Skúlason’s tran- that would allow databases to be run as a mass Wiki-memorial, housed on the Mormon this same kind of oblivion. They extend the scriptions of the primary sources – Icelandic business like Ancestry or Scotland’s People. Church’s servers in Utah. honour of inclusion among the known, the censuses, church records and the like – are Iceland may be the country best positioned recorded, and the connected to a larger and not publicly available either. How to Trace Your Icelandic Roots in the world to take advantage of such a sys- larger group of people. Icelanders are truly Íslendingabók is not the only large online So here’s the problem for Icelandic family histo- tem. It’s fascinating to see that Friðrik Skúlason special in having so comprehensively kept their Icelandic genealogy database. Hálfdan Hel- rians: many record sources and much compiled and Hálfdan Helgason have already created forebears’ identities safe from the crumbling of Share Your Ancestors gason, a retired engineer who has made a genealogy have been computerised, but they thickly linked genealogical databases that try records and the weathering of gravestones. hobby of genealogy since he was a teenager, aren’t easily available over the Internet. Family to cover the entire, limited, universe of Iceland. While we are surely not going to stop maintains a database of 520,000 individu- history researchers from the USA and Canada They have even put them on the web. They’re physically remembering the past in archives Text by Ian Watson Photo by Tempest Anderson als (accessible via www.halfdan.is/aett, but have it even tougher: the material that is online just in a form that – for now at least – doesn’t and cemeteries, it looks more and more like you need a user name and password from is generally in Icelandic only. What should you include photos and documents and lacks the memorializing our ancestors is another one of Helgason to get in). The database is not as do if you are researching your Icelandic roots participatory accessibility of a wiki. the things that is going to move online. Just as Iceland’s genealogy is nearly done. “Finish- twelfth generation back, that would mean that own time. He is a specialist in computer vi- logical records have been thwarted by privacy complete as Íslendingabók, but it’s not small from abroad? There is one other person in Iceland who Google and Wikipedia have revolutionized the ing” a whole nation’s genealogy would be the average Icelander has about two hundred ruses and for years his main product has been concerns, the refusal by some Icelanders’ to either.