Back in the 1960s when I was in 6th form my history teacher promoted the old-school historians such as Trelawny and Macauley (I can't remember the other ones).  I didn't fare very well in my first attempt at A level history - to be honest I hadn't really put the spade work in.  I went to evening classes to re-take History A level in the early 1980s and passed that time fortunately (obtained a B though an A would have been nicer).  Our teacher at the evening classes suggested some of Antonia Fraser's books as sources for background reading.  I looked for myself at the local library to see if I could find any relevant books.  I borrowed a Penguin Social History for the time period we studied (Charles II's reign to early Industrial Revolution) and found it helpful.  I borrowed some of Antonia Fraser's books as well.

For myself, I look both online and in the local library for information pertaining to historical (and other) matters.  Of course during the pandemic the library was out of bounds so my searches were solely confined to the world wide web then.

Going back to before the pandemic, when the U3A French conversation group I belong to used to meet in person, one lady in the group advised me to be cautious about Wikipedia.  I had heard that it had improved but the lady in question counselled that with a subject that can be divisive such as whether Richard III was a goody or a baddy, the Wikipedia entry could change rapidly.  Someone might say what a bad lot Richard was and then another person would come along and say that Richard was a most maligned king.  I'm inclined to have a little more faith in the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica though I must own up to referring to Wikipedia occasionally.

I use YouTube and podcasts sometimes as a source for material with which to keep my shorthand ticking over.  I have sometimes visited the YouTube channel 'Writerly Witterings' by Michael Jecks, writer of historical-based mysteries.  He said that once whilst doing research for one of his books he had used something he found online but discovered that the online version was not really correct so after that he always either used books or checked anything he had found online in a book.

I remember reading a post by Catigern (no doubt it's still in the annals of Res Hist somewhere) to the effect that studies of DNA had found that there weren't great differences between the Welsh and the English. I did wonder at the time of reading the post whether the DNA findings meant that the Celtic population of Britain weren't all pushed west or displaced as I learned at school.  Some perceptions of history (and pre-history) have changed over time.  At one time it was proposed that Brontosaurus the dinosaur was actually a type of Apatosaurus but since 2015 some folk have stated that Brontosaurus is different from Apatosaurus so looks like Bronto is back (any Res Historians with deeper knowledge please feel free to deepen my knowledge).  I never learned about her at school but from general reading I came to understand that Elizabeth Bathory was a very wicked person but there is now a school of thought that much of the stories about her may have been lies.

I have a gadget that I've had for a few years called an 'Elonex' which is really a poor woman's Kindle.  I haven't used it much.  I love the feel of a "real" book in my hot little hand but can see a place for Kindles and the like for folk who find carrying/holding heavy books a problem.  Not all 'real' books are heavy of course (I'm referring to the actual weight of the book - not the seriousness of its content).

Not being a grandparent I'm not awfully familiar with the reading patterns of the younger generation but I could ask my younger acquaintances - and even those of my own age who have grandchildren (some even have great-grandchildren, might be some with great-greats).

To reiterate, for myself, I use both online research and printed  books (when I can get to the library which hasn't been much this year).  I can access the works of Thomas Babington Macaulay online through archive.org (there's another site for out of print books - Project Gutenberg - but I haven't used that much).  Any facts Macaulay spoke about will remain facts though the style of writing in the early 21st century has changed from that used in Macaulay's time, naturally.

What there is online, at least within my degree course, is a lot of primary source information that previously one would have had to go to a library to read, assuming one could find it.  As an example and as I have just posted on the GDR. following Mms post, an excerpt from a 1978 GDR article concerning the state of its economy.

Harry Nick, Head of Research Department at the Academy of Social Sciences (GDR),
extracts from an article in Wirtschaftswissenschaft, 1978

Certainly one of the most important aspects of continuing to improve the
entire economic mechanism in the GDR is further objectifying the criteria
used to judge scientific and technological progress. The result should be
preventing situations in which, on the one hand, the plan for science and
technology, the goals set for product quality, are fulfilled and overfulfilled,
while on the other hand the position of these same products deteriorates in
international markets[…]

If a more accurate analysis is made of the GDR’s lag behind advanced
capitalist countries as far as standards of technology and economy in a
number of areas are concerned, usually the following turns out to be true. In
the area of basic research there is no lag at all, or only a relatively slight
one. However, the closer we come to the actual stage of production, the
further our research lags behind. The greatest lag occurs during the phase
when technical solutions are to be directly applied to production, and it is
due not so much to the product parameters as to the technology employed.
The difference in effectiveness that occurs in production is greater than can
be determined by comparing the product parameters. The decisive causes
leading to these differences in effectiveness in comparison to advanced
capitalist countries lie in the areas of technology and organisation of
production […]

Continual and vigorous acceleration of scientific and technological progress,
purposefully increasing its economic and social efficacy, require that
significant steps be taken to further develop management, planning, and
economic stimulation of the socialist economy as a whole