 |
 |
Dead Persons' Society Aims
|
 |
|
- To promote an interest in genealogy via the use of
computers and the internet in a social environment ...
- To promote the production and distribution of genealogical
indexes and other research tools ...
- To foster cooperation, personal development, and
entertainment through genealogy.
 Who Are We ...
In Western Australia, the Perth Dead Persons' Society was begun by a group of local family researchers who communicated on the FidoNet Bulletin Board service known as the Dark Closet. It was operated by Sue and Tony Down until it's closure in late January 1998.
With it's interest in how the general community was embracing the newly emerging World Wide Web, Murdoch University's Teaching and Learning Centre came to the rescue and
offered to host this PerthDPS web site and a mailing list called DPS-chat.
Just over 30 years later ...
This PerthDPS web site and its associated DPS-chat mailing list are still being moderated by Rob Nelson ... although they have changed form and moved house several times over the years.
In mid 2024, DPS-chat stopped running as an email list and re-appeared as a private Facebook group ... DPS-chat
The Bigger Picture ...
The DPS movement began in Melbourne, Australia in August 1992 when twelve interested people met in the home of Leone Fabre. The slightly irreverent choice of name was inspired by the popular Robin Williams' movie of that time ... The Dead Poet's Society.
The Melbourne DPS continued to grow since those early days, and since April 1994 it met in a local community hall capable of accomodating the fifty or more people who attended each month.
After the Melbourne experience, groups soon sprang up in other major capital cities and in each case the DPS members gravitated around a Fidonet BBS which specialised in genealogical conferences and files.
In fact, by the late 1990s, DPS SOCIETIES were located throughout Australia and New Zealand ... and it was not uncommon for computer genealogists who were travelling around Australasia from interstate and abroad, to try and attend a DPS meeting along the way.
Real Meetings 'in-the-flesh' ...
Meetings allowed regulars to finally put 'a face to a name'.
They provided a forum for the exchange of ideas and skills, and apart from regular hands-on workshop sessions, guest speakers were also invited to speak on special topics of interest.
The DPS was a loosely affilliated movement of on-line Family History Societies where the membership was often much younger, and was keen to explore and advance the use of computers in the geanealogical world.
'Reciprocal Research' ...
Unlike the more self-centered approach witnessed today in on-line users ... back then, in the spririt of cooperation, DPS members adopted a philosophy of 'Reciprocal Research' whereby at any time and in any place around their home city or interstate or abroad, members would do a 'look up' in their personal library, their local family history society or State library or archive.
Computer-based genealogy programs were beginning to evolve and in many cases members were making personal connections with other members and were constantly on the look-out for others' research interests as they trawled through the records ... One-Name-Studies were not uncommon.
The production and distribution of genealogical indexes and other research tools was the second of the DPS aims listed above.
It was already an established practice in more conventional societies and was idealy suited to the DPS model ... especially giving free access to the results. As a result, many indexing projects were begun and in many cases, continued on until a useful end product was produced.
At the same time, various government bodies were seeing the benefit of digitising their BDM resources and releasing them on the newly arrived CD-ROM format. As they became available for sale, it was not uncommon for individuals to add them to their personal libraries and offer look-ups or bring them along to meetings.
The Story Today ...
Sadly, these days Perth DPS seems to be the only surviving group, and it's main presence is through the maintenance of some of its on-line indexing projects and the DPS-chat group on Facebook.
John Graham's highly successful Ryerson Index was founded in 1998 and is the only other relic ... its origins lay with the Sydney DPS group.
The demise of the fido-net bulletin board systems is marked by the universally popular take-up of the world wide web coupled with the heavy involvement of various government organisations and profit-making commercial web services with their pay-for-view approach to family history.
In the mean-time, the Perth DPS is still alive and well and is doing its best to keep their various offerings up-to-date and relevant to our modern times.
Please enjoy our efforts, appreciate that everything is still done on a voluntary basis, and enjoy our work that is still free to all ... If you like what we're doing, fell free to join in and help us maintain the three aims set out in those heady times, thirty years ago.
We acknowledge all of our past members who worked so hard over the years and who are now living in the cemeteries that they once researched ... Hip, Hip ... Hooray !!!
(All graphics used on these pages are copyright
and should not be used without permission.)
| 
