Good Morning Folks, As Martin Luther King said "I Have A Dream" and that is to leave something for future generations. In the past we have had no way to leave any visual record of what was there other than the oldest photographs and as we can see they do become unusable and the VHS tapes that we make only have a life span of about twenty years. We now have the means to leave sooooo much valuable video with the coming of the digital age. The digital video on DVD is almost indestructable. I just got myself a new digital video camera and a new PC that can write to DVD. Here is what I propose. Take the time and go around and video all the places that you use to play and do your growing up and since you are recording your voice also explain what everything is and all the crazy things that you use to do. It will mean nothing now but will be priceless 100 - 200 years to your descendants. I have done this. I futher propose that we all try to video as much of our own county/counties as we can. You c! an get a small power converter to plug in the cigarette lighter of the car that will power the camera just fine. You can easily mount a small tripod over the hump between the seats. Leave the camera on it's widest angle lens setting and aim it out the right side of the windshield and travel down the road and back while recording the video and explaining what you might know about the various places and things. I live in a county of NC that seems to have nobody that is interested in history or leaving anything for future generations and I am sure that many of you have the same problem in your county/counties. As the saying goes "If I Don't Do It, Who Will". I have already started in Rutherford Co., NC. At this time it looks very foolish and you cannot do it without some expense. Just how would you like to be able to see video and have someone explain what things were 200 years ago? This cannot happen for us but it can be there for future generations. The problem is that techno! logy is continually changing and improving and unless there is always some interested "nuts", like myself, to keep moving it ahead to the next media or should we say keep moving it ahead with the technology. It would soon die because of no equipment that would display the video. It is only up to us to create the video and that would be our fair share. Someone else can do the the upgrading to the next technology. I know that this is not exactly genealogy but it is running awful close. Lets hear a little input, or outcry, on this. Bill