Digital Extra

"This is not your Uncle Bill and Aunt Jenny," says the silvery-haired Whittaker, a retired quality assurance manager. "This is a group of people who are researching a surname."

As a result, they all end up pulling together. "If you find information that doesn't fit into your family line; you can help others with it," he said.

From Chepachet to New Zealand, genealogists are increasingly accessing information through massive Internet-based databases. And new genealogy software has helped reduce traditional historical documents to computer compact discs.

The interest is so keen that the National Genealogical Society holds yearly conferences. Early this year, a conference was held in Providence, in part because New England is home to thousands of original source documents.

Still, while the Web has helped broaden genealogy's appeal to the masses, experts say, the resulting influx of newcomers and their lack of schooling in genealogy's research techniques are creating problems of accuracy. Posting unsubstantiated family histories can perpetuate errors across the worldwide computer network.

GENEALOGISTS WERE one of the first groups to use an early version of today's Internet about 15 years ago, says Kimberly T. Powell, a genealogist and Internet consultant, who maintains a genealogy Web site for About.com.

She says they posted leads on electronic message boards and used e-mail to communicate efficiently. As the Internet blossomed in the early 1990s, she says, it drew legions seeking to trace their ancestry.

"They stumble across it," Powell says. "Most people first look to see if they are related to kings and queens and royalty. Then they get addicted."

Today, approximately 60 percent of the U.S. population is interested in family history, up from 45 percent in 1995, according to a Maritz Marketing Research poll released in May. The poll also showed that about 35 million people have used the Internet to research their family history.

Many attribute the swell in popularity to the Internet.

"It's bringing a whole bunch of people into the field,' Powell says.

With the new technology, genealogists no longer have to wait months for a response to a query. They can use e-mail to communicate with each other and official records keepers. A genealogist in Alaska, for example, can now contact a colleague in Rhode Island to get a source document from Glocester Town Hall.

Anyone interested in genealogy can easily find thousands of Web sites on local genealogical societies, census data, vital records, cemeteries and ethnic genealogy groups.

A newcomer, for example, could visit Cyndislist.com, which is stacked like a specialty bookstore with 75,200 genealogy-related hyperlinks. Cyndi's list says it has been visited by 16 million surfers since March 1996.

They could search online databases, including the 63-million-name Social Security Death Index. And next year, they will be able to rummage through a database of 17 million people who walked through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924.

Genealogy's growing presence on the Web has also created a market for specialized software to help organize family trees. Web sites, such as MyFamily.com and Genealogy.com, sell subscriptions for access to databases.

Aside from the business end, experts say genealogy, even on the Internet, will always be about sifting through records online and offline to find an ancestor.

Powell says, "Once you get connected to people on the Internet, you still have to do genealogy the old-fashioned way."

EXPERTS STRESS that these new technologies and their ease of use should not overshadow what genealogy was built on: digging up original source documents, fact-checking and peer review.

Patricia Law Hatcher, a professional genealogist and lecturer, says newcomers don't have the training to do real genealogy and are often times too trusting of the information they retrieve on the Internet.

The newcomers collect the information and, without verifying it, deposit it into their own family histories. Then they publish this unsubstantiated family tree on the Internet and further spread the errors, she says.

Further complicating the problem, she says, is genealogy software, which enables users to easily share databases. For example, a researcher exchanges his database with another researcher, and in the transfer, the names of suspected and still unsubstantiated ancestors are passed on.

"It makes it unavoidable to perpetuate errors," Hatcher says.

Sometimes, these databases carry the names and personal information of living people. This personal data is then passed along without the living person knowing, raising issues of privacy, Hatcher and Powell of About.com say.

To deal with the privacy issue, some Web sites, which provide space for family trees, screen submissions and remove entries that do not have a date of death, Powell says. But this type of personal information does get through.

These issues so concerned practicing genealogists that the National Genealogical Society created guidelines in May for publishing genealogies on the Web. The guidelines call for citing sources clearly and unambiguously and providing contact information so visitors know where to submit comments.

While the Internet may provide access to more information, experts say discoveries on the Internet should be approached with skepticism.

THAT ADVICE resonates with Robert E. Whittaker. He says genealogists shouldn't receive the information on the Internet as fact. He says there's the "truth and the new improved truth."

"Some information is better than no information," he says. "Someone might tell me that my grandmother was born July 18, 1890. I want to find the birth certificate."

He says the Whittaker Family Researchers site is a good use of the Internet; it serves as an extra set of researching eyes. The group communicates new developments through e-mail, electronic message board, and e-newsletter.

"It's an invaluable tool for me," Whittaker says. And, he says, the group, united by the Internet, have also been valuable tools for each other.

Recently, Whittaker came upon a Whitaker while reading a book on early immigration. It wasn't his ancestor. But, he thought, it may be an ancestor of Edna Whitaker Kent (no relation), who lives a few miles away in Chepachet.

He had found a Richard Whitaker, from Rehoboth, who lived in the early 1600s. While researching her family lineage, Kent had gotten stuck on Richard Whitaker and Rebecca Cooper of mid-1600s Rehoboth.

The newly discovered Richard Whitaker was much too old to have been Kent's earliest known ancestor. It could be Richard's father. If so, it could be the breakthrough Kent needs.

Already, the hunt is on. Kent has the help of dozens of Whitaker family researchers scattered throughout the world, unified by the Internet, to scour town halls for Richard and his family.

They have sent letters to public records offices, including one in London.

"With all the new information and contacts from the Internet," Kent says, "there are certainly people in England working on this and that final link can be made . . . it's only a matter of time."