Ancestry Magazine

Hazards for the traveling genealogist

I am generations away from the rugged roads of the migration routes west in the United States, but anyone who installed a modem in a home computer in the 1980s is another pioneer with stories to tell. As with many middle-aged adventurers new to the dirt road which became the information superhighway, I was guided by my college-age son. We’d already been fellow travelers through the CB radio fad of the 1970s (and I now beg forgiveness from my Scottish ancestors for having used the handle of “Classy Lassie” during that brief exploration). The CB infatuation ended for me fairly quickly after finding very little satisfaction from extended conversations in a strange new language with hordes of highwaymen with whom I had nothing in common. My son continued with the hobby until he was old enough to obtain a driver’s license and venture out into the real world.

One day he brought home a modem from his college computer class and demonstrated its dazzling capabilities to a skeptical Mom, who still remembered the endless streams of consciousness on the CB: “Breaker! Breaker! Smokey ahead! Ten-four!” So it wasn’t until my second personal computer, in 1988, that I installed a modem for myself and tiptoed into the world of online communications. Luckily, I stumbled into the fledgling genealogy forum on CompuServe, newly created and operated, then as now, by Dick Eastman (now also the new editor of Ancestry’s Genealogical Computing). Dick and his friends were gentle guides, ever patient with the “newbies,” and I quickly found myself a daily communicant at the forum, where I remain today, a decade later. I had many more questions than answers in those days—both about genealogical research and about computers. But I learned from those pioneers who’d hit the trail ahead of me.

My genealogy pursuits and workaday life include much travel, so a portable laptop was the next logical vehicle. Dick explained how to wire up a modem to any kind of telephone system one might find while traveling, and I printed out all the files. Today, many urban hotels have dedicated jacks for a modem right in the telephone itself, but early and rural trips often meant the need to hook up through a Rube Goldberg-like assortment of cords, extension plugs, and complicated connections.

For some reason, the wall jack for a hotel-room phone is often located just behind and under the bed. That’s where I found it on a memorable genealogy conference trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire a few years ago. By then I was an experienced jerry-rigger, and besides, Dick Eastman himself was attending the conference. What more reassuring technical support could a person have?

I unpacked my trusty tool kit and external modem and set out to establish the trail of wire and plugs that would soon have me online—not unlike Lewis and Clark setting up camp when they wandered into the wilderness. I set about my communications chores: dragging the phone cords across the bed and pulling the bedframe out from the wall to reach the jack. (Why is it that many hotels nail the headboards right to the wall? Are they afraid the guests will steal the headboards?) Standing now between the mattress and the wall, and needing some support as I bent down to make the final links, I reached one hand up to hold onto the headboard to steady myself.

You’ve probably already guessed what happened next. The headboard came right off the wall, crashing down between the bed and me. I was too embarrassed to call immediately for “tech support” from Dick, so I called the hotel maintenance staff to report the accident.

Picture the look on the maintenance man’s face as he entered the room to find a single guest, a gentle-looking grandmother, who had just pulled the headboard off the wall, smiling while she mumbled about “genealogy research” and “modem connections.” And consider the tales he had to tell his co-workers after he re-attached the headboard, shook his head, and quickly left!

Later that evening, and for many conference gatherings since then, the story of Sandy the “room trasher” has made the rounds-and it just goes to show that we mobile genealogists are willing to go to any lengths to make that connection!

Sandra MacLean Clunies is certified by the Board for Certification of Genealogists. She is vice-president of the National Capital Area Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists.