05 August 2011

Understanding interest in genealogy/family history

On July 27 I posted about a survey of genealogical interest being conducted by Carleton University researchers.
I recently had an email from project leader Leighann Neilson, an associate professor of marketing at Carleton's Sprott School of Business, letting me know that following a successful pilot focused on Cape Breton the study is now expanded. They welcome survey completions from anywhere in Canada -- and although Canada is the focus responses from anywhere else would be welcome.
According to thie website "the objective is to secure accurate information concerning the resources engaged with by family historians/genealogists." The immediate use for the data is to form the foundation for a research grant application.
Results will also be shared with participants and the general public via a website that will be constructed for this purpose and through the submission of papers to scholarly journals.

The survey takes 20-30 minutes to complete.

This and the follow on research could be useful to probe anomalies such as why family history society membership is declining while the population moving to the age range typically most interested in their family history is increasing.

Start the survey at http://www.cusurveycentre.ca/gensurvey/

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