Technology

I am a big fan of technology and genealogy is certainly easier now than it was 25 years ago.  Today we can search on Google, access databases such as Ancestry.com, and read blogs.

We used to be limited to writing letters instead of emails (which was much slower), visiting libraries instead of Google Search, and reading books instead of blogs.  Not that some of those methods are still helpful, such as reading earlier investigations in books, and searching microfilm and boxes of documents in libraries and archives.

Terri O'Neill is forever commenting on what a beautiful handwriting that Stephen Moore had, even transcribing documents for others.  But I want to tell you that Terri and I started all this before we had such technology.  We wrote letters.  Terri published her findings in her excellent  Moore, Stanford, Webb Chronicles before we had a blog.  I had always wanted to write a book on the Stephen Moore family, but with constant new information developing, a book quickly becomes dated and blogs can remain current.

Not only did Stephen Moore have a beautiful handwriting, but so does Terri and most of you have never seen it, because her work appears in printed form.  Here is a letter that Terri wrote me some 25 years ago about West Point.  Note her handwriting and her love for genealogy, when she said: "I wish I could devote more time to this stuff instead of mundane details like fixing meals & doing laundry!"

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