Genealogy Social Networking Day 31 - Online Family Trees

First off...Happy Halloween! We've come to the last day of Family History Month.

The last thing I will talk about for social networking is Online Family Trees. I have covered a couple of the big sites that host online family trees earlier this month. There are others I haven't mentioned as well. In those I mostly focused on how to contact individual users and connect on the site. Not all online family trees are visible to the public, some people choose to keep theirs private.

There are also personal family tree websites. Some are hosted through other big sites (e.g. Famberry or Family Pursuit...), some are self-hosted websites. While family trees through those sites are often restricted so just family members can view them, self-hosted sites are usually publicly available. They usually have a family tree, sources for their information, and stories and photos. There is no standard template, so finding information on a site may be difficult. One nice thing about stand alone websites is that they are searchable. You should be able to find them with any search engine (like Google).

As for family trees hosted on the big sites (Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast...), you can search the site for names and information. Doing this can lead you to more sources and filling in branches of your own tree. If the tree want to see is private, you can request access to it, or send a message to the owner and ask if they have certain information you want.

I hope you search for family trees online, and search within the big sites for other trees that match up with yours.

Happy Family History Month!

Genealogy Social Networking Day 30 - LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional networking site. It focuses on business connections. It can be great for genealogists as well. There are genealogy groups on LinkedIn, and many genealogists have profiles there. If you are in one of these groups, or connected to other genealogists, you can easily find people with expertise in areas you need help in. Likewise, if you have an expertise in some area, others can find you or recommend you to people needing help.
With the business focus, you can have more specific conversations without wading through memes and other nonsense (Facebook, I'm looking at you). You can connect with professional genealogists, or hobbyists, but you are sure to find people with the same passion for genealogy that you have. It isn't as social as other sites, but is still a good place to find other genealogists.

Do you connect with genealogists on LinkedIn?

Genealogy Social Networking Day 29 - Yahoo! Groups

Yahoo! has a forum-type section of their site called Yahoo Groups. There are groups for just about everything. They were popular before Facebook became such a huge thing, but some of the groups are still going strong. There are lots of different genealogy groups.

You can find general groups like "Ancestor Hunters", geography specific ones like "Pennsylvania Genealogy, topic specific like "DNA-Newbie" for genetic genealogy, or surname ones like "Burton Genealogy". There is a search engine on the site that lets you narrow down what kinds of groups you want to look for (or posts within a group).

Some groups are small but very active, others are large but quieter. Once you join a group you can look through all the previous posts, photos, files, or links to find further information. While they may not be as popular as some Facebook groups, they are still a wealth of information, and if you find an active group you can have more personal communication and genealogy help. Definitely worth checking out.

Genealogy Social Networking Day 28 - The NextGen Genealogy Network

The NextGen Genealogy Network is specifically designed to help network younger genealogists. They are trying to bring together all generations of genealogists, while helping the next generation feel included and find their place.

As a younger genealogist myself, I am often surrounded by people of my parents or even grandparents generation. I totally see the need for finding more inclusive ways of bringing younger people into the community. That's where NextGen comes in.

Young genealogists sometimes have a hard time finding their voice in an older community, but with the explosion of internet resources for genealogy it is easier to get them involved. NextGen targets genealogists in their 20's, 30's, and 40's, though they welcome anyone who wants to join. They arrange meetups at genealogy conferences so you can meet other young genealogists in person. They have occasional Twitter chats and Google+ Hangouts to further the conversation online.

If you are a 'next generation' genealogist, are you part of the NextGen Network?

Genealogy Social Networking Day 27 - Conferences

There are many local genealogy conferences all over the world, especially in the US. Most people go to the conferences to learn new things about genealogy and new resources or ways to use the resources. It is pretty neat to be in a room with hundreds of other genealogists all learning together.

Face-to-face interaction is the original social networking. You certainly don't need the internet to do that. And conferences are a great place to meet new people and find others with common interests and goals. I have been to our local conference 2 years in a row now, and have quite enjoyed it. I was probably one of the youngest people there (which is an odd feeling when you are in your 30's), but always felt welcome by the people around me. We were all there for the same reason, and age or ability level didn't seem to make much difference.

While at a conference you often break out into small classes about specific topics. This is a great time to interact with and meet others who are interested in those topics, as well as meeting the presenter. Meal times you can sit with new people and talk to them about their research. There is often a vendor fair where you can explore different products and services and find people also looking into the same things you are, buying the same books, joining the same organization, etc.

Don't pass up an opportunity to network with others in person at a conference.

Genealogy Social Networking Day 26 - BillionGraves

BillionGraves is a website for photographing and transcribing headstones. You use an app on a smart phone to take a photo, which is geo-tagged with the GPS location of the headstone.  It's such a cool thing, especially when your ancestor is buried in a very large cemetery. Anyone who downloads the app, and signs up for the free site, can photograph a cemetery. Volunteers can also transcribe photographs, which is great for people without smart phones.

When transcribing, you can input the information on the headstone. After the record is created, other information can be added. Family members can linked together, obituary and personal history added, even other supporting records can be uploaded (like a printed obituary or death record).

There is a community page where you can ask questions and talk with others on the site. They have a leaderboard for top contributors, both photographing and transcribing each month. I made it onto the board one month when I photographed several local cemeteries. I know it doesn't really mean much, but it's fun to see your name on there.

Genealogy Social Networking Day 25 - Find A Grave

There are many resources online to find ancestors. Find A Grave is a site to literally find them, in their final resting place. It involves memorial pages for each person, with places to connect them to other family members as well as room to write a biography or transcribe an obituary. Photos of the headstones can also be posted.

The information on Find A Grave is completely free. It is also searchable both on the website and through other sites like Ancestry and FamilySearch. You can join for free and save memorial pages of your ancestors into your own 'virtual cemetery'. This is great for keeping your ancestors easy to find when you need to refer back to the page. Or, you can suggest changes to the pages, adding family members or biographical information. If you find the memorial of a direct ancestor, within the past couple generations, you can request to become the owner of the memorial.

You can also become a contributor to the site. As a contributor, you can upload photos of graves, or just help transcribe photos others have uploaded. You can also 'pay it forward' by taking photos for other people. If someone wants a photo, they put in a request for it. Then, local genealogists can choose to claim and fulfill the request, go take a photo, and upload to the page. Any member can request a photo, and upload photos for others.

There are also community forums for Find A Grave. You can ask questions and join discussions on various genealogy and cemetery topics. You can also view galleries of interesting and even humorous headstones and epitaphs. Definitely worth going to the forums if you are a regular Find A Grave user.

Genealogy Social Networking Day 24 - Family.me

Family.me is a family tree social networking site. It is designed to bring living family members together to share and preserve your memories and family history. You can keep track of your current family stories as well as those from the past.

You can build a family tree manually or start with importing from other social networks. You can combine family trees, merging your with your cousins. Together you can research your family history. You can search through millions of historical records on the site and add it to your tree.

Much like other social networks you can add photos and videos, and comment on other's photos. There is a family map to keep track of your family's locations as well. They have an app to make it easy to keep in touch on the go.

Genealogy Social Networking Day 23 - Family Tree DNA

If you do genealogy chances are you have probably heard of using DNA to find information about your family history. Family Tree DNA is one of the big companies that provides DNA testing for genealogy. They provide Y-DNA, mt-DNA, and Autosomal DNA testing.

After you get your results you can find others who have matching DNA. There are DNA projects you can join, many are surname or location based. They also have forums to connect with others. In the forums you can get all sorts of questions answered, and learn how to use your DNA results to help trace or confirm your genealogy.

23 and Me also does DNA testing, but doesn't have the supporting community the same way Family Tree DNA does. Ancestry DNA provides limited testing, but is supported by Ancestry.com genealogy community and family trees. Ancestry DNA can be transferred to Family Tree DNA for a small fee, so you can use the one basic test to get the benefit of both sites.

Have you tested your DNA for genealogy purposes?

Genealogy Social Networking Day 22 - WikiTree

WikiTree is a free family tree website. They are creating one giant world family tree, wiki-style. They have different types of memberships (all free). A Guest Member can participate in the Genealogist-to-Genealogist (G2G) Forum, upload a GEDCOM, and can comment on profiles on the WikiTree. A Family Member can do everything a Guest can do, but they are added in as a family member by one of the 'Genealogists'. Once added in they can make changes to some of the profiles and add some information to them. Finally Genealogists are full participating members of the site and sign an honor code to help fulfill the mission of the site, and do genealogy work on the tree.

Each person on the family tree gets their own profile page. On that page you can enter information, cite your sources, add family members, stories, and photos. You can collaborate on the work with other researchers. The G2G boards allow you to ask questions and get research help. You can tag your posts, follow tags so you get notifications if others use the same tags (e.g. a surname), and answer questions. If you find a genealogist you trust with your information (i.e. they are your cousin or something) you can invite them to see the full profile of living people. Living and recently deceased people have more privacy built in on the site, and the further back in time you go with the tree the fewer privacy restrictions.

Are you a volunteer genealogist on WikiTree?

Genealogy Social Networking Day 21 - YouTube

YouTube is not typically a place you think of going for genealogy. Don't let the cute cat videos fool you, there is a lot of great information to be had on YouTube. Just searching the word 'genealogy' brings up over 120,000 results.

There are organizations that use YouTube to post videos, including archives, libraries, societies, family tree companies, and many more. You can find videos from popular shows like Finding Your Roots and Genealogy Roadshow, Ancestry.com, Genealogy Gems, and Family Tree Magazine among many others. Just about any topic you want to learn about has a video full of information.

Each video (with few exceptions) allows you to share it and comment on it. You can link to it from just about anywhere on the web and in social media. For smaller YouTube channels, the owners/posters may even respond to questions in the comments and interact with their audience. Or you can interact with the other commenters yourself.

Go check out a video and learn something new!

Genealogy Social Networking Day 20 - Family Pursuit

Family Pursuit has 2 basic options, a personal family tree website, or a community tree. Joining the Community Tree is free, but hosting your private family tree is a paid subscription (all members of a site pay just one fee). They say one of their goals is to create a community for genealogists to network, share knowledge, and build relationships.

The Community Tree is a wiki based tree, where anyone can add information and people to the tree. With the community tree you can collaborate and network with many other genealogists all working toward one large family tree. Changes that are made can be undone if something was wrong. You can add ancestors to your 'watch' list, so if others make changes you can see them right away. You can also create research projects for yourself or multiple users.

The personal family tree websites are for you to collaborate just with the family members you want to. You can make your own family tree, and invite others individually to view and work on your tree with you. You can create assignments and projects for people on your site, which keeps duplicate research to a minimum. You also get notified when changes are made, so you know when people add information and sources. The private trees can also be synced with the FamilySearch tree, if you choose to activate that option.

Do you use Family Pursuit to pursue your family history?

Genealogy Social Networking Day 19 - Genealogy Wise

Genealogy Wise is a genealogy specific social network. In this website there are groups, either location, topic or surname specific, forums, classes you can take (offered through The National Institute for Genealogical Studies), blog posts by members, instructional videos, and online chats. It's a bit like Facebook and forum websites combined, but just for genealogists. And with over 38,000 members, there are lots of people to connect with.
Within your profile on the site, you can list surnames you are researching as well as locations. You can also search through existing members to find others researching your same surnames and connect directly with them. There are groups for various surnames and locations (lots of surnames actually).
In the chat rooms, there are scheduled chats about specific subjects. There are also places for free chatting to ask questions, get help, and socialize with other genealogists. They also offer private chats which are one-on-one between people. This can be helpful if you are getting specific help on something, and it's faster than other messaging options.
There is a way to upload photos, but this isn't a photo sharing site, so keep them relevant, and you only get 100 photos. You can also upload up to 30 videos. If you have expert knowledge in a particular topic, you can create a video and upload it for easy sharing on the site. You can write blog posts and put them on the website. They will show up as a blog feed on your profile page as well as in the general blog posts feed.

Have you connected with others locally or with your surnames through Genealogy Wise?

Genealogy Social Networking Day 18 - MyHeritage

MyHeritage is another family tree website. It actually now owns Geni (that we looked at yesterday). It is one of the major tree based websites for people to do genealogy online. They own the rights to several collections of historical records, which are searchable on their site. Being internationally based, they have many resources for searching outside the US.
On MyHeritage you can create your own family tree 'website'. You can attach photos and stories, and invite others to see your tree. You can then share events with them and collaborate on your genealogy research. You can choose to have your tree be public or private, or just parts of it public (like privatizing more recent generations and living people). There is an option to create family tree charts as well, which you can print from home with all the information already in place for you.
They connect easily with several apps including BillionGraves, Family Tree Builder, and Timebook. Timebook uses the information you put into your family tree and generates a book about your genealogy. Of course, they have their own MyHeritage app too.
When you input a person into your family tree, the site not only searches for historical records that match your information, they also search for other trees that have the same person. They call these 'smart matches'. If the other person has their tree public, you can see all the related information, and find out if you have the same ancestors. It is a fast way to connect with others who are researching the same people as you.
You can contact the owners of the other family trees, which is helpful if you have questions about where they got their information. You can see if they have attached sources or citation to their information right on the ancestors profile page. Being able to see who else may share your relative and be able to contact them is a wonderful thing when researching.

Do you use their Smart Matches to contact other genealogists?

Genealogy Social Networking Day 17 - Geni

Geni is a family tree website. They have both free and paid versions. You can create a family tree and invite you family to join. You can upload photos, documents, and other information about each person on your tree. Anyone can share their tree with anyone else and share documents and research. With a paid subscription you can choose to 'merge' your tree with the main worldwide family tree they have created.

When you create a tree you can choose to include contact information for living relatives and invite them to be a part of your tree, for them to view it and add to it. There is a family calendar, timeline, and news features that can be used with your tree. Within your family group you can highlight changes made to the tree, to spotlight research you all have been doing.

If you do a search through the website you can find other family trees that may include your relatives. You can use this to find more distant living relatives. You can then contact them and share information and even join each others family tree group.

Genealogy Social Networking Day 16 - Podcasts

Podcasts are like a radio show that happens intermittently. They usually consist of experts in their given field talking about various subjects. They may talk about the latest news or products, or give information about resources and techniques for doing research.

Some podcasts provide opportunities for callers to ask questions, allowing the audience to participate. It's pretty cool that you can call and ask your questions to an expert and get advice right away. Most also keep an archive of past casts, so you can go back and listen to them anytime.

There are several genealogy blogs and sites that have podcasts, and they usually post a schedule and even a topic. Here is a short list of places to go for genealogy podcasts.
Family Tree Magazine
The Genealogy Guys
Genealogy Gems
Blog Talk Radio (lots of different topics, including genealogy)
BBC Tracing Your Roots

I'm sure there are more out there, this is just a selection. There are also podcasts out there for history, if you want to learn more about some of the general history your ancestors lived through.

Now go listen to a podcast.

Genealogy Social Networking Day 15 - Famberry

Looking for a way to share your family history and work on a family tree with members of your own family? That's what Famberry is there for. You can sign up for a free account, make a family tree, and invite others in your family to join you. The trees are secure and private, so you can add in names and dates of living people without the whole world seeing it. You can share family photos and stories as well.

It has a traditional family tree structure, allowing you to go forward or back in generations. It also has a way to create a timeline for your family as you add in dates. You can create calendars, which is a great way to remember each others birthdays and anniversaries.

You have 1 terabyte of space for storing photos and messages.  It's an interesting way to connect with living relatives, as well as add information about ancestors.

They do have a way of searching for your ancestors on other trees, to allow you to connect with more distant relatives. You can keep your information secure from them if you want, or build a new relationship with them and invite them in.

The main goal is to help maintain and build family relationships. Wouldn't doing family history be a great way to do that? Check out Famberry if you are interested.

Genealogy Social Networking Day 14 - WhatWasThere

WhatWasThere is another photo/map pinning site. On this site there are basically just two tags for a photo, the location and the date taken. While the focus seems to be historic photos, there are current photos as well (since some day even they will be historic). The goal is to "weave together a photographic history of the world" Some of the photos can be overlayed onto Google street view.

The site isn't as focused on the social aspect however, so you can't directly connect to others who have posted. You can see their username, and the copyright information, and what the source of the photo was (usually a personal collection). The site does have a Facebook page and a Twitter account that they post things to often. So, you can follow them and connect to people that way.

Have you posted any photos to WhatWasThere?

Genealogy Social Networking Day 13 - WeRelate

WeRelate.org is a wiki family tree. It is sponsored by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy, Inc., in partnership with the Allen County Public Library. You can create profiles of your ancestors, include photos and documents for your research, cite sources, and add in a family tree. If your ancestor is already on there, you can add information to them. Others can also see what you've done, and make changes or add information.

It's a great free service that is trying to create a single unified family tree. So far it has pages for over 2.6 million people. Each person gets their own page, with information and stories. You can write a biography for example.

They also have weekly contests to find information on people and attach sources to the page. You can also volunteer to help. They have lots of ways to help maintain the website, or you can help others break through brick walls on their ancestor.

Are your ancestors on WeRelate?

Genealogy Social Networking Day 12 - Flickr

Flickr is a photo sharing site. It's like Facebook just for photos. You can join groups, post photos, like other's photos, comment on them, and share you photos in lots of ways. One cool thing about it is that it's not just people posting photos, it's also libraries, museums, and archives including the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, even Getty images.

There are lots of cool genealogy related groups. Some are families, some are places, some more general. You can join lots of groups and post to any or all of them, or just look through what others have posted. For example, there is a group for West Virginia Cemeteries. So if I have photos of my ancestors headstones buried in WV, I can post to that group. Or I can find other more artistic photos of the cemetery and monuments.

You can find old photos from around the world, both of people and places. And you can upload your own family photos. You can choose to have them public or private, so it can be used as a backup even if you don't want the whole world to see. The best part is that you get a free terabyte to fill with your photos.

Do you use Flickr for genealogy?