For any night time writers the internet is an invaluable research tool but when researching the life of a biography subject can the internet really provide everything?

Suite 101 discussed this with genealogy expert Charles Hughes.

Suite 101: What first inspired your unique service?

    I am a professional historian for over twenty years and lately I have been involved with genealogy and family history. As first a historian and second a genealogist, I felt that more could be done to provide our clients with a more well rounded depiction of their family story.Although names, dates and places are tremendously important, it does not tell the whole story about a family. Interviews of older family members can provide many important details that are often lost, forgotten, or in many cases never even known. We, as children, do not know much about our parents (even less of our grandparents) before we were born.

    The in depth oral interview (8 – 12 hours in length) can provide a wonderful look into the lives of those ancestors that have passed on. By interviewing a grandparent today we can offer the generations to come, a look back on a life that in most cases will be completely gone 50 – 75 years from now. For many of us, it is inconceivable to understand a world with no TV, airplanes, IPODS, cell phones. I recently interviewed a woman who was 83 years old and she showed pictures of her great grandmother (born in 1843) who she remembered. Civil War, WWI, and WWII memories can be collected.
Suite 101: How important or useful is the internet in genealogy research?