John Clinch offers a cautious welcome to the increasing number of online resources for probate research
The reputation of that information superhighway, the internet, makes it tempting to believe that finding missing heirs or completing a family tree is as simple as clicking a mouse. Tempting, but misleading. Specialist expertise, practical experience—and, not least, the researcher’s personal touch—are still essential to reach a successful conclusion: the reliable answers that solicitors and their clients demand. To the experienced genealogist the internet, like a book or archive, is just another tool. Each is useful for tackling part of the job, but none delivers the complete solution. To understand from the record of a life event—birth, marriage, emigration or death—how close research has brought you to the right person, experience is essential. No computer program can replicate that. Online, the immediate future is likely to prove especially difficult. The birth, marriage and death records that have been centrally recorded since 1837 represent the basic resource of genealogical research in and . Unfortunately, despite the failure to complete digitisation of these records on schedule, closure of
