3 iMacs (ancient, 4 years, brand new) need to ethernet

We are a two iMac family with a brand new 24 inch still in its box. I'm getting the new one, he's getting the 4 year old, and the ancient blueberry (still works great but has less than 1 GB left to work with) will go to his studio. So we have to consolidate the stuff - first from our 8 year old blueberry to our 4 year old, then from the 4 year old to the new one.
My Mac guy says ethernet RJ45 cable is the way to move stuff around. OK, so....
My question is - both old computers have one ethernet port both connected to the internet at this moment. What will happen to that connection if I connect the computers with the RJ45 to each other to file share? Is it going to not know the way back when I reconnect them.
They do share a printer through the internet router but when I tried to go personal file share through it - they didn't see each other.
Thanks.

If the computers are all connected to a router then you can transfer files between them using File Sharing. Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "sharing" or "file sharing" which should produce several helpful articles. There is no need to connect the computers directly since you are already using a router in your home network.
Alternatively, if you have a suitable external hard drive (USB or FW400) then you could just copy files to the hard drive and then propagate them to the respective computers. This will ultimately be a bit faster and obviates the need to get file sharing to work.

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