Re: Census form online for first time

"John Prentice" <johnp.use...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

I don't think that would be a problem. We are in the most thoroughly
documented period in the Earth's history, by orders of magnitude. When
we deal with the dearth of information available on our own ancestors,
and play those detective games to make the most tenuous of connections,
it's easy - but mistaken - to project that forward and expect it to
apply to the future.

But by then all the books and paper records would have been scanned
and the originals recycled into toilet rolls and all the documentation
will be electronic. The trouble will be that no one will have
remembered to update the stuff as time goes by and it will all be
unreadable because no one will have any hardware that will be able to
open the files. So they will know less about their ancestors than any
generation has in the past!

Peter
.