Dick Eastman and others claim Global Positioning Systems are genealogy's next Really Big Thing. (Eastman's article.) But Are they? We'd like to know. If so, perhaps we should start including GPS coordinates in this web site's list of Norfolk Place Names and our B-M-D Etc database.

Over the last decade many family historians have adopted all sorts of technology -- personal computers, genealogy programs, scanners, cell phones, the Internet, data on CD-ROM for example.

But "many" is not all. Just as many still rely on pencil, paper, scotch tape and three-ring binders -- technologies as old as the historian herself.

And now, just when many of us are finally beginning to understand Windows, RAM and hard disks, here comes another technology opportunity/challenge.

To be fair, there are only two Really Hot post-2000 technology advances on most genealogists' radar screens.

The first is DNA, the potential to use ancestors' genetic traits to predict and perhaps defend against disease for the next generation -- and to prove ancestry going back centuries. (We'll get more into that in another article.)

The second is GPS, small handheld units that can tell us exactly where we are -- albeit just in in terms of longitude and latitude that few of us  really understand.

My questions are simple: do you already own a GPS receiver? Do you know another genealogist that does? Do you plan to get one this year? If so, email me and tell me so. If (or when) more than a few do, we'll look at adding Norfolk GPS coordinates to our constantly evolving collection of online Norfolk genealogy resources.
 
10 May 2002 update. Okay already, so it was a dumb question. My apologies. I really didn't realize GPS was so popular with genealogists. Thanks to all who responded -- even those who asked "at least the coordinates for my ancestors, please." It will take a while to publish enough coordinates to be genuinely useful, but we'll start today.