This was supposed to be the Age of the Information Superhighway.

Physical access to courthouses and archives, coupled with massive digitization projects and easy availability of Internet access, should have made this a genealogist’s dream: a time when everybody had access to just about any kind of information residing anywhere.

It hasn’t worked out quite that way. Even as many records are becoming much more accessible as they come online, doors are being slammed shut on many more — often records that aren’t and won’t be online, now and perhaps ever. Issues of politics, governmental secrecy, personal privacy, and budget woes deeply affect records access. As a community and as individual genealogists, we have to be vigilant in our defense of access to the records we need.

By joining together, as genealogical societies and as individuals, in coordinated efforts led by our community’s Records Preservation and Access Committee (RPAC), we can make a difference. By diligently preserving the past, we can help protect the future: not just the future of access to records but the future of the very records themselves.

Join Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL, and the Federation of Genealogical Societies for a bite to eat 12 12 noon, Wednesday, 10 May 2017 and learn more at the FGS Luncheon presentation, Preserving the Past, Protecting the Future: FGS + RPAC. (Advance Registration Required, $32.00)