Second we're spending a huge amount of money on technology so that everyone can check out laptops and portable phones. We're spending more money to write our existing information into databases or onto CD-ROM.

We get information in the mail the regular postal mail encrypted or not vet it like a regular news organization format it - which is sometimes something that's quite hard to do when you're talking about giant databases of information - release it to the public and then defend ourselves against the inevitable legal and political attacks.

Well again a gun sale database is just trying to get the Department of Justice to keep track of the guns that they're purchasing and supplying to drug dealers and murderers. I mean wow. Come on let's get the government under control before we start restricting the rights of - innocent citizens.

With paper printed books you have certain freedoms. You can acquire the book anonymously by paying cash which is the way I always buy books. I never use a credit card. I don't identify to any database when I buy books. Amazon takes away that freedom.

So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship.