Treasure Maps Feed
I'm working on a free "Facebook Genealogy" mini-guide for Treasure Maps Genealogy Newsletter readers. You will be able to use it to help you with Facebook (in general, and with genealogy in the Facebook world).
If you are already on Facebook and want to be friends, click on this link: "Treasure Maps Genealogy on Facebook".
Here are some typical comments I have been getting about genealogy and Facebook:
- "WHY??? Why do I need to sign up for more stuff that I don't have time to use? Please advise."
- "So far you haven't convinced me about Facebook or any other social network. The biggest reason for not joining is that I don't have the time. I spend a lot of time with emails. Some friends and students forward to me emails they think are funny, inspirational, informative, you know how it goes. Some are great, and I forward them on to those who like to send them to me."
The majority of comments have been about time, or the lack of it, to being even bothering with Facebook, and understandibly so. However, here is a success story that brightened my day and gave a little hope for this "Genealogy 2.0" social media tool.
A Facebook Genealogy Success Story…
Andrea Barnson shared this with me:
"I have been a long time reader of your newsletter. I have a great Facebook/Genealogy story to tell you.
When I was little I had been told the story of how I was named. I was supposed to be named Angela but my biological father had mentioned that he had an older daughter that he did not keep in contact with by the name of Angela. I had been told this story numerous times over the past 30+ years. When I turned 23 I started to look for Angela not really knowing that much about her except her approximate age which would give me an idea of when she was born and her birth last name. I never did find her until…
On March 13, 2009, Friday the 13th I get a Facebook note from someone named Angela. So I opened it not knowing who it was. She said I think we are related. So goes on to tell me who her biological father is and his parent's names. I sat in shock for about a good 30 seconds until I noticed tears running down my face.
This is the Angela I had been looking for. She had been in contact with our biological father and he gave her some information on ancestry. So she googled it and found a note I placed in Ancestry.com back in 2002. She Googled my name and found me on Facebook.
The sister I had been looking for found me almost 15 years later. She never knew I existed until March 13th.
I just wanted to share my experiences with Facebook and genealogy." (Andrea Barnson)
Please share YOUR opinion. Is Facebook going to help you with your genealogy research? Or, do you think that Facebook is just a waste of time - and you would be better off whistling "Dixie" and doing something else, instead?
Way back in the early 90’s. I asked my cousins wife for info for my Family Tree. Over a short period she gave me the names and birthdate of all her children and grandchildren.
My cousin later passed away and somhow I lost contact with Sarah, his wife. I knew they moved to Florida, but no more. Recently I decided to search Facebook for the Grandchildren. An article you wrote about the percentage of people you know within your age group will be on Facebook.
Anyway, I found 8 of Sarah’s grand children and they have, confirmed their birthdates, reconnected me with their parents and told me more about their grandmother, Sarah.
Archie,
So glad to hear the good news about finally getting help from the family using Facebook.
Here is a blurb from my article in the April issue of Treasure Maps Genealogy newsletter that you mentioned:
“This is my opinion, based on my experiences and observations on Facebook:
* If you are ages 50 - 105, about 30 percent of the people you know are on Facebook.
* If you are ages 25 - 50, about 50 percent of the people you know are on Facebook.
* If you are ages 15 - 25 then about 90 percent of the people you know are on Facebook.
If for nothing other than personal reasons, you need to take the plunge and sign up. For example, you can use Facebook to:
- Keep in better touch with your family, especially kids and grandchildren.
- Have fun with your friends.
- Find long-lost friends from school, work, etc.
- Make new friends.
- Discover some really neat stuff.”
FaceBook is a wonderful tool. It can easily be in place for anyone that wants to take advantage of it, but at the same time, not be required for others to receive the full benefit of using the Newsletters, web sites, and other tools provided by Robert. It is a great way for members to ask questions and received feedback from EVERYONE, not just Robert.
I LOVE Facebook. Mind you - I’m 19.
But I just wanted to point out that most of the people I know on there are in their 30s. There are so many genealogists and just other people on there. Its a great way to reconnect with people.
I found two cousins on Facebook that I met when I was a kid. I’ve found long lost cousins, people with similar genealogy interests - and there are so many great groups!
There are so many nice, sweet people on Facebook who are so willing to help. I post a research problem, and I get a response so quick from someone I know!
Its a great way to keep in touch, find new links to cool stuff (awesome genealogy websites or just interesting articles), and I use it to keep up with blogs, and people always give me hints!
I have a Facebook account, but I feel that it is a MAJOR waste of time. There are far too many friends and family on there that seem to have far too much time on their hands. Of course, this could be the opinion of a 72 year old man.
I don’t have an account and don’t want one. Just cannot grasp the necessity of Facebook. I realize there are people out there than can’t live without it and use it daily, but I’m just not there. It can carry some pretty unsavory content and has been used in a non-constructive manner. I see it as fad that is in its top phase now . . . but as all fads go, something new will come along and boot it to the curb.
I recently joined Facebook and made friends with Treasure Maps. I also made friends with other people. But I have a complaint with the program. It is too slow! I have to wait until the letters and words catch up. I am a fast typist and this is very annoying. Also I was just learning by trial and error (mostly error) and was slowly learning my way around. I could find no instructions anywhere - just being helped by friends already there. I decided last night that I will only take part in the genealogy FB info, as I don’t have time to try to find my way around. I also kept getting what I call reject messages and I didn’t know why - but I did figure that out. I was getting comments from a friend via my e-mail program, and, thinking it was actually her email to me, I replied to “noreply” and they came back telling me the address was not valid! Now, to answer the main question here - I do not yet know if this will be valuable with my family searches, but I would like to try it for a while and find out. If you can assure me by your experiences, I would like to hear from you. You can use my e-mail address also, if you wish. Thanks for listening!
I don’t like Facebook too well. To me its not in my age bracket but my daughters love it so they help me in a way but I don’t use it often.
I have recently joined Facebook to keep in touch with far flung friends and relations. I have discovered that one of my first cousins (geographically distant), while not necessarily interested in researching ancestors, has been going through old photographs and pasting them on her wall. I keep an eye on them and ask her to email me copies of the relatives we share. I might never have known of the existence of these photos otherwise.
Also, my mother told me yesterday that one of her cousins has a lot of information about their shared heritage. I have already become a “Facebook friend” with this person, I’ve never met, and seen photos of her grandchildren, so I am more comfortable about approaching her through Facebook, to invite her to look at my work on ancestry.com. Before Facebook, I might not have had such an easy opportunity to do this.
Facebook can, however, be a time-waster, you just have to be disciplined and set a time limit for yourself. And limit the number of silly quizzes you take!
You know, the more I read up on the comments with this - I realize I have more to say.
The geneabloggers group is amazing on Facebook. Everyone is so nice and helpful with everything to do with blogging. I’ve had so many technical questions answered on here that it shocks me sometimes.
The events section is awesome (I use it for genealogy purposes) to keep up with genealogy conferences, lectures, and blogging carnivals.
I love the genealogy groups on Facebook in general - because everyone is so willing to help. You post a query and someone will at least give you suggestions, if not just do the look up for you.
My cousin who isn’t into genealogy recently got on Facebook and has been using the Family Builder app to put names of family members in. I had forgotten about some of these distant cousins and she can add stories to the people on her own time. It’s wonderful!
And the IM/Private Message ability is awesome. I recently used it to talk to a friend of mine who is very involved in the SCGS Jamboree and she gave me tips and answered my questions in real time. Much easier than emailing back and forth!
Like other people have said - Facebook can be a HUGE time waster. You have to remain disciplined and use it for genealogy. I only use it for genealogy and to keep in touch with people. I never do the stupid quizzes or add stupid apps. I stay disciplined and Facebook is productive for me.
Facebook has helped me keep in touch with cousins I haven’t talked to in years. It also tells me when friends are online and allows me to “chat” with them. I was on one night and was able to chat with my son in Iraq! As for a genealogy tool, I joined “Linked In”, “Family Tree”, and several genealogy groups, and these have done little or nothing to help me with my genealogy. Maybe I’m not using them to their fullest potential. In my opinion, nothing can compare to Ancestry, but I have been able to discuss information I find on Ancestry with my cousins to help THEM with THEIR genealogy.
I recently joined Facebook. Although it’s a great way to communicate with family, I have derived nothing as far as genealogy…no one seems interested in that aspect. I have reached out and no one has answered me nor communicated with me in this regard. Hopefully someone will eventually.
I have personally found several family members just by typing in the surname in their search bar. I think it will help tremedously!!!
My experience with Facebook has been mixed. Overall, I think it is great, but as others have said in here, it can be a huge time waster.
On the positive side, it has enabled me to keep in constant contact with my family, that is scattered all over the world, Scotland, New Zealand, France, Australia, Italy, Germany etc: I have exercised discipline when it comes to adding contacts and out of 65 people in my list, 45 of them are related, the rest go back to my school days, or are very close family friends. I set up Facebook for my kids also with STRICT instructions to keep it Family Concentrated only. This works well and enables us all to “Meet” our relatives that we would have otherwise not known. Got a first cousin visiting us from France this month, and had it not been for facebook, I would have had no contact with her. So this is awesome.
As far as Genealogy goes in Facebook, I use the “Were Related” application, which is useful to see at a glance where everyone fits. The “Family Tree Builder” on the other hand is more trouble than it is worth. It loses information after entering it, it often drops the first letter of a persons name requiring it to be re-entered and is clunky to use. Good idea that is badly executed IMHO
I have done my tree and host it on Tribalpages, but if the “Tree Application” in Facebook was better, I would probably upload the GED file to it. As far as research goes, I have not used facebook to do any research as I am from Scottish parents and the information can only be got from scotlandspeople(.)com which costs money. The only other avenue that I use is Freecens and I do census transcribing for them as well. Their goal is to make all the Census forms for Scotland available FREE.
It seems people have the wrong idea about Facebook being too much work. Either they are terrible lazy or are making assumptions without trying it. I also don’t think they understand the value of “Social Networking” when it comes to genealogy.
There is also assumptions that Facebook is all about young kids, and that’s just not true. We organized a 38 year high school reunion with the power of Facebook and I’m 56. Anyone who has tried to find family information after 1930 ( the last exposed census) knows how hard it is to find cousins. Facebook provides this medium and will continue to as folks try it out. The really requirement is to learn how to setup a group site for genealogy. You could certainly help here.
John
Q: How Do You Feel about Facebook - Waste of Time or Great Genealogy 2.0 Online Social Tool?
Robert,
As a 1986 college grad, I experienced the march of technology of the PC. I went from using an electric Silver Reed typwriter to a 386 pc, dial-up modems, and now, cat-5 wired and wireless computer systems.
Facebook is yet the latest in an ever developing march of technology. This social networking technology is an excellent resource for genealogists as it can assist them in both locating, as well as identifying, relatives.
Granted, finding relatives is limited by the balky and unfriendly search box in facebook. Perhaps someone will devise a bypass search engine, such as Steve Morse’s Ellis Island search engine.
But, regardless of its limitations, I have nothing but praise for facebook.
tip: locate the younger cousins and you will find the older ones. Relatives with unique names, and known geographic locations, may be easier to locate.
There are some significant benefits to using Facebook, and for that matter probably other social networking sites. However, I recently ended my involvement with Facebook. Reason? There are too many security issues with it for my taste. And recently they changed a number of things that make it even harder to really lock down security on Facebook - you have to work at it, and if you don’t know what you’re doing by studying right from the beginning, you can have information available “out there” that you didn’t even know about, that you thought was restricted to only a small number of “friends.” The risks outweighed the benefits in my opinion.
C.R.
I didn’t find facebooks genealogy family tree site very easy to use. It is very confusing and I am a veteran genealogist. For the beginner it would be a nightmare. Wish facebook would come up with a better site. I love facebook itself just having a hard time with the family tree area.
well i just got facebook and i cant get into it i dont know why. it seems silly and a big waste of my and everyone elses time. i thought it would be great but i dont really care what someone is doing on their pet farm or that some guy i hardly know is shopping or to see pictures of people doing nothing. I have found that i like to blog and read others blogs about things that matter to me. besides you dont need facebook to keep up with family or friends they are going to call you if anything happens of importantance. its funny that people get into this so much i guess im old fasioned or something i dont know.
I just started using facebook with much hesitation. But now Im hooked. I can keep in touch with friends and family in one easy spot. Everyone these days are so busy and this just makes it so simple. Since I am the one in the family doing our family’s research it is great for me. I can find lost members and keep in touch with everyone, even family far away or not in my immediate family. I was very skeptical at first but now im a believer.
My cousin located his biological father through Facebook. First he located his half brother and through him his Father. Facebook is good for ancestry searches too.