Why I'm not arranging any research travel in 2021

Short answer: I don't like boxing with one hand tied behind my back. I am still happy to discuss possible commissions not requiring travel, but my overnight bag will remain on the shelf this year.

Long answer: let's look at an actual case I worked on in January 2020, just before everything went wrong. I flew across Spain for 2 days - up to 8 hours - of family history research at a Diocesan Archive. 2 hours into the records, something was wrong: my client's family just did not come from the parish they had indicated. Not their line, not a sibling, not even a possible match with garbled surname order - nothing. A quick search in the online catalogue of another archive nearby yielded some possible clues: a State archive, it held wills and land records. It was only half an hour away and opened afternoons, so that afternoon I went over and requested a few of the records in their database, found the problem, then returned to the Diocesan Archive the next morning, requested the books of the correct parish, and successfully completed the research.

Under current restrictions this would be impossible.

* Even if the first archive were open - a big if, at this point in time - social distancing regulations require it to operate at 50% capacity, meaning that if before 10 researchers gained access in a day, now it is only 5.
* I would have had to request the appointment weeks or months ahead of time, and would probably not have been given one for a second consecutive day, as the backlog and waiting list are so long.
* Even if I had, I probably would not have been able to 'pivot' to the second Archive that afternoon, because I wouldn't have had an appointment for it.
* In any event, most Spanish archives now require researchers to request in advance the specific records that will be used, because after use, registers and bundles are quarantined for anywhere from 7 to 14 days before the next researcher is allowed to touch them. So I probably would not have been able to work with any records at the second archive, but even if I had, I still probably would not have been able to do anything on the second day of research, my focus having shifted to a different parish for which I had not requested the records in advance.

Covid-19 restrictions save lives, but they also strangle researchers' ability to improvise, a reactive ability essential in a country with so little item-level cataloguing of archival records and relatively few surname-indexed databases. Make no mistake, more will be learned from research trips conducted under normal circumstances than from 99% of projects undertaken under current restrictions.

I was able to complete a few travel-based assignments successfully from June 2020 right into this year, but once the cautious hope of 'New Normal' in Summer 2020 gave way to a second and then a third wave of the pandemic, most of the requests I received could be quickly dismissed via a filter consisting of 'Is this open? No.' Credible reports now suggest Spain will not reach 'herd immunity' before about November 2021, and as archives are not an essential service, my impression is that for the most part they will be among the very last venues in Spain to return to a pre-pandemic footing. There is simply no sense of urgency to providing access.

Rather than research with one hand tied behind my back, as it were, I feel it is more sensible to wait until the researcher's task is no worse than it used to be, when I can again use my nearly two decades of professional experience to their full effect on behalf of clients. In the interim I will continue handling ongoing commissions that can be completed remotely, such as previously commissioned probate research, concurrently with other professional undertaking. Feel free to contact me for a frank assessment as to whether a specific project can be set in motion remotely or is best shelved until 2022.