I’ve always downloaded images to my own computer of records I’ve located online. I may not always be able to maintain the subscription to have online access to the image. The site you subscribe to may eventually lose the ability to host the image even if you don’t let your subscription expire.
And there’s always the chance that you are unable to find the image again.
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8 Responses
Good advice. Another advantage in having the image on your own computer is the ability to enhance the document when printing.
Don’t restrict this practice to fee based sites, any free site may stop hosting images for any number of reasons, including having their collection bought by a fee based site. Also, when looking at that image you didn’t bother to download, did you transcribe every piece of information on the image, including the ones that are not relevant, until you discover later that they are?
This is very true. FamilySearch did this with images of vital records from Cook County, Illinois, a few years ago.
I am working through the problem of disappearing records with Scotlands People right now . I have been using Sp for more than nine years and I usually print a copy of the document, but not always(sometime there is no printer available or I think I will do it later. Now I am paying the price for not making a copy of every single document. I am having difficulty in finding documents on Scotlands People that I paid for and want to revisit. It appears that I have to enter the exact search I entered 10 years ago to find the record I am looking for. I am not good at remembering the actual words that I used 10 years ago.
This is excellent advice which I always give to newcomers to genealogy. I learnt the hard way by not doing so. Sometimes though unfortunately, it is not possible to download an image because of internet restrictions such as using a library subscription whike travelling.
Good advice. I fall short on this sometimes too. I need to go back on all of them and make sure I have hard copies. I am working on improving my organization habits!
If you cannot download due to restrictions, you may be sable to email it to yourself or
send a link and copying at home. You may be able to make a screen shot to send to yourself.
Good ideas. Screenshots emailed to yourself are another approach when working away from home.