"Pay No Attention to that Man Behind the Curtain!"
Treating the Humans Behind Technology Humanely

To Err is Human

Not to say that there were no Danes living in Wales at the time of the 1881 census. There were at least ninety individuals on the disc who were recorded as being born in Denmark. Most of them had non-Welsh surnames like Tagholm, Ludvigson, and Christensen.

In the case of my Welsh family, however, the transcription error was obvious. A "P" was mistaken for a "D" by one of the volunteer transcribers. A review of the 1881 census itself (I was working with indexes after all), showed that the hand writing was indeed difficult but close examination showed Penmark rather than a foreign country. No Danes in my family tree, sad to say.

1881 Census CD-ROM screen mistakenly showing births in Denmark rather than Penmark, Wales

I was apoplectic! What knucklehead got this information about MY family wrong for thousands of genealogists to see? My 2nd great grandmother and 3rd great grandmother were about as Danish as a pastry. What if some unknown cousin started down the wrong path to Denmark for our family? What was I to do? How could I correct it?

I calmed down a bit eventually. I wanted to complain to someone, but then I realized that I was looking at this all wrong. The project which had transcribed and put to CD-ROM the entire 1881 UK census had taken over a decade. It was done by over 10,000 volunteers who put in over 2 million volunteer hours to do the job. The LDS Church sells the resulting CD-ROM set for a pittance. Instead of being irate over an error, I should be thankful for those thousands of volunteers and all the other people involved in the production of this great finding aid.

I called the LDS technical support telephone number and asked how I could correct the error. The human being at technical support provided me with instructions on how to submit a correction. I made sure that I thanked that person in technical support for their help.

The Facelessness of Technology

Technology hides the human face of the people who make the technology possible and who keep the technology working. This is as true in genealogy as it is in any field of endeavor. We, the users, forget that there are humans behind it all - humans write the code, humans fund the projects, humans make the content, humans run the show. The error which I had found was a very human one.

The Face of Technology? (Dorothy Meets the Wizard)

The thin technological veneer sitting on top of our research tools such as CD-ROM finding aids, web sites, genealogy software programs, etc. is what we actually face when we sit down at our computers. With technology being in our face, we can make several wrong assumptions.

We assume that because we are facing technology, all of what we want will be automated. We assume technology will be available to give us what we want. If it's not automated, we are disappointed. We certainly voice our disappointment but rarely do we volunteer to fix the problem. Got the 1851 & 1881 census on CD-ROM? Then we want 1861 & 1871 and we want it yesterday.

A further assumption is that because we have technology in our faces, we treat people the same way we treat the technology. Usually rudely, always as a servant, and mostly as inanimate objects. We do this by association. It is easy to think of technical support staff for the 1881 census CD-ROM was simply an extension of the product itself. The nice person I spoke with on the telephone was not a part of any product, they were a human being like myself.

Of course, we usually only resort to interfacing with humans after reaching the point of frustration with the technology. The genealogy program doesn't work quite right - call their help line. There is something wrong on the web site - e-mail the web master. The mailing list is doing something funny - contact the mailing list host. At this point, we've already burned off some of our patience with the problem at hand. The human at the other end of our communications is usually the unlucky recipient of our attitude towards the problem itself.

I get a good share of "attitude" about problems as a result of hosting genealogy web sites and running genealogy mailing lists. I've observed technical support call centers in action and Dante's visions of Purgatory are a picnic in comparison. Technical support people have my sincere sympathy.

What To Do Differently

1. First, we must always be polite to them. Their participation in our hobby in whatever capacity means that they are probably fellow genealogists. Treat them with respect as they may turn out to be a distant cousin. Besides being common courtesy, you're always likely to get a better response using honey rather than vinegar.

2. Send or say your "thank-yous." One of the things that helps keep volunteers and paid staff going on projects day-in and day-out is receiving an occasional thank-you. Whatever the method of communication, be sure to indicate that their work is appreciated. For every offer of "thanks" they received, they have clocked dozens of "thank-less" interactions. Make yours a positive one.

3. Pity the support staff. Besides being there to assist you, they have a huge job to do. They must try to understand what you're telling them, estimate your level of technical expertise, find a solution out of thousands of possibilities, and communicate it back to you in a fashion understandable to you. Could you do all that in a few minutes? Would you want to? Be nice to them.

4. Don't assume that a technology solution exists. Because you are having a problem with the technical interface may not indicate that a technical solution exists. There may not be web site out there with exactly what you want on it. There may not be a data field in your genealogy software to indicate that your sixth-cousin-eight-times-removed's favorite flavor of ice cream was Rocky Road. The data on your family may be wrong in an electronic finding aid, just like my fake Danes. The human nature behind the technology means that there will be errors, omissions, and limitations. This is natural and normal, not a cause for fits.

5. Volunteer to make technical solutions happen. Is the census you need not yet on CD-ROM? Enlist in the project to help transcribe it. Don't see a web page about the fascinating genealogy of the Wild Man of Borneo? Then create one. While many of us are very good at complaining about the problems, there are proportionately few of us who are actively involved in providing solutions. Be one of the fixers rather than one of the complainers.