Saturday, February 12, 2011

WAY BACK MACHINE

© Kathy Duncan, 2011

They say that once something is on the internet it never really goes away. Fortunately, for genealogists that statement is true.

We all know the disappointment of finding a promising link on the internet only to find that the page can no longer be displayed. When that happens, the page can be quickly accessed by selecting the "cached" link on google. Eventually, though, the page will not appear in cached and will disappear from search engine listings. Once upon a time, that meant it was gone for good.

Enter The Way Back Machine to the rescue. If you have an old URL for an internet page that no longer exists, the pages can be recovered through the Way Back Machine. Just enter the old URL into the search engine, and like magic links to it will appear.

The Way Back Machine can be accessed at
www.archive.org/web/web.php

If you would like to play with an old, dead internet page to see how it works, you can enter my old family site, featuring my Duncan and Nevill ancestors:
www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/8907/kathyduncan.html

It works like magic. The old page springs back to life: the old background and graphics are still there in living color. Most of the old internal links still work. There are snapshots of my old site, that date from 1999 - 2001.

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