The past in the present: historical knowledge in digital sources

The online world generates new types of historical evidence while new technological and cognitive mechanisms cause novel and unexpected manifestations of history and memory. This article explores some of the many issues that arise from the practice of digital research, especially concerning those sources that are born "digital". Such issues include their classification, their credibility and their conversion into historical knowledge. We distinguish history in the digital age from history born digital, and we propose a theory of how digital-born sources affect heuristics and transmission of historical legacies.