No, but it helps!
Family trees can be drawn up by hand, or you can purchase books and charts to complete by hand. These are perfectly acceptable. Many people still use typewriters to record detailed information.
Computer software programs are alternatives to handwritten records, but the information still has to be typed into your family history database, checked and so on. As your family tree becomes larger, one advantage of a computer database is the ease of accessing detailed information and presenting it in different ways.
The advantages and disadvantages of using computers are no different for family history than for most other interests - you have probably long since made up your mind!
But if you are reading this, you have accessed the internet, which, I suppose, is easiest by way of a computer at home. As a means of obtaining information, the Internet is an amazing development. I have read that accessing genealogical information is the second most popular internet-based activity. The wealth of information available at the touch of a button is staggering. I believe the internet has advanced the progress of family history research by leaps and bounds, particularly, if you are looking for ancestors in another country.
Largely due to the work of unpaid volunteers, many records, such as parish registers, may be accessed from your home and there are numerous local history websites which provide background on the places frequented by your ancestors. Antique books and postcards can be purchased on-line, as well as books and cd's which list genealogical information held at record offices. Some websites contain the interests of family history researchers and there is every chance that you will find those distant relations more quickly than by relying on letters and the telephone. You never know, they may have done some of your research - you only have to verify it! See Links. Newsgroups and the e-mail facility enable you to exchange information in seconds with people anywhere in the world.
So in my opinion, access to the Internet is more important than owning a computer yourself, but, like my dishwasher, now that I own a computer and have mastered its intricacies (up to a basic level, I hasten to add!), I would not be without it.
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