Off The Record

Alan Crosby contemplates the future for family history societies after Covid-19

Thoughts on the future of family history societies

The lockdowns continue as I write. Among my tasks for the next fortnight are preparing a Zoom talk on crime in a Lancashire town in the 17th century for a family history society, and collating the material for four online talks about bastardy and illegitimacy between 1600 and 1900. They were intended for a day school in Lancaster but that, like the evening lecture on crime, has been cancelled.

It’s the same story everywhere. Live events and gatherings are banned, and we resort to Zoom or similar online solutions if we can… but many of the local and family history societies for which I’d booked talks, lectures and teaching sessions have abandoned their programmes until September or October. By then they’ll have had more than a year-and-a-half of inactivity. I know people in such societies who seriously doubt whether they will ever be able to resume their regular existence – the lectures, the visits and guided walks, the workshops and the educational sessions.

Part of the problem is the loss of momentum, which means that starting up again will be quite difficult. Another potential challenge is that members may be reluctant to attend in person, because of apprehension about the dangers to health or wellbeing, or because they have lost the habit of booking the third Tuesday evening in the month, or some other regular date, in their diary or calendar.

But no less seriously, many societies are run by people who are “of riper years” (as it says in the old baptism service in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer). A considerable number of them, perhaps in their late 70s and 80s, may decide that the long break in society activities, the pressures and stresses of the past months, the existing challenges of an ageing membership, and the all-too-familiar difficulties in finding a chair, a secretary, a treasurer or a programme organiser, will simply be too much of a deterrent. Those societies may fold for lack of people to take on the task of opening up shop again.

This is a genuine threat, heightened by the reality of online communication. Why go to a talk in a chilly village hall on a November evening, if you can see it at home in the warmth and comfort of your own room? Others argue that we no longer need hard- copy newsletters, because a digital publication is easier, cheaper and doesn’t require physical delivery. Some societies have found that online events have attracted encouragingly high attendances, and – importantly – have brought in people from further afield, or who cannot attend meetings in person for reasons of health or mobility.

Of course, it’s an insuperable problem for those who don’t have access to online technology. However impressive Zoom might be, there’s much to be said for a ‘real life’ meeting, rather than a small screen where the picture freezes and the sound breaks up. The technology is a godsend, but it is not a completely adequate substitute. If family and local history societies are indeed fading then I will be filled with regret. One at which I spoke every year has already ceased operations – nobody from among the 50 or 60 members would step forward to replace officers who had done stalwart service over too many years. I always enjoyed speaking to that society. I would meet old friends, there was a lot of warmth and good humour, nice tea and biscuits at the interval, plenty of chatting and interaction, and a real sense that it was part of village life. Now it’s gone, taking with it part of the community spirit.

It will need a real effort to get organisations up and running when the current nightmare is over, and to find individuals who will volunteer to meet that challenge and carry that burden. The large and ostensibly flourishing family history society for which I am currently preparing a Zoom talk will hold its annual general meeting that same evening. Nobody wants to stand as chair or vicechair. Its survival is precarious. The pandemic has worsened an existing problem, and I’m not filled with optimism about its future. By the time you read this, its fate will perhaps be known.

Why go to a talk in a chilly hall if you can see it at home?