Facebook - A Genealogist's Tool for Record Keeping, Research, and Collaboration

Benefits of Using Facebook for Genealogy

• Facebook serves as a type of journal and records everything you post in chronological order.

• Facebook can keep you up-to-date with your family, both immediate and extended.

• Facebook can re-connect long-lost family members.

• Facebook can aid genealogical research with pages specific to localities, families, organizations, businesses, etc.

• Facebook offers a place to store and share family history information.

Issues to Be Aware of and Work Around

Privacy – Restrict your personal information, choose your friends carefully, take advantage of extra security measures such as two-step verification.

Photo resolution – Photos are not stored on Facebook in a high resolution.

Technology Comfort Level – Not all your family will be comfortable with Facebook due to experience with technology. Think of it as an opportunity to connect with some, but not all, family members. 

Facebook may not replace methods you already use as a genealogist, but it can certainly be a useful addition. You may make discoveries and see pictures you never would have known, and offer that same opportunity to family you know and to cousins you might never have met.

Create an Online Genealogical Survey to Capture the Interest of Your Family

Asking your relatives a lot of questions to aid your genealogical research can be an overwhelming, tedious or boring experience for them. What if you created a colorful survey to capture their interest and enthusiasm?

Google Docs will allow you to create an online survey that is so fun to fill out, your family will be asking you to send them another.

Here's how to do it:

Go to docs.google.com

Sign in or Create an Account and then click on the red "Create" button. 

From there a dropdown box appears where you will click on "Form".

When you click on "Form" you'll be brought to the page where you write your survey:

After filling in the survey form, you can share it with the people you want to fill it out. Click on the Google+ share button to share it with your Google+ Circles. Click on "Email this form" to send it to people through email. Be sure to UNcheck the "Include form in this email" if you want people to see the pretty background as they fill out your survey.

 This is what the email looks like when you send it to someone:

If they click on the link, they'll see a survey like this: 

When you go back to your Google Docs, you'll see the survey you created in your list of documents.

Click on it to be brought to a spreadsheet of responses to your survey.

The answers your respondents give will be in the spreadsheet. You have all their answers in one place!

From the spreadsheet you can also edit your form or view it live by clicking on "Form" at the top.
 

And that's how you make a survey that can be used for family history.

If you'd like to see the Family History Photo Survey I created, CLICK HERE.

You may find survey making has other useful applications, too. I used it to find out what kind of Easter treats my family want this year. (We're at 17 descendants and still counting so holidays are getting a bit more complicated!) If you want to see it, Click Here to see the Easter Treat Survey. You can fill it out, but I can't guarantee you'll get a treat!


Now try making a survey yourself!

Thine in the bonds of family history fun!  Caroleen

Blogs - They're not just for reading...

This is the symbol for Blogger, a blog hosting service offered by Google.

Ever thought about starting your own blog?

Here are some good reasons to do it:

1. Just like you can learn a lot by reading others' blogs, others can learn a lot by reading a blog hosted by you. Be a giver of information!

2. Blogs are an easy way to get started using the cloud. The data you upload to a blog is saved in "the cloud". Who knew?!


3. A blog is a cheap (as in free!) way to back up your data. Everything you put on the blog is backed up by whatever blog hosting service you use.


4. Sharing your family history finds on a blog gets the info to interested family members quickly. Find it, post it - it's that easy. Forget the photocopies! Eradicate the emails! Lose the links! It's all on the blog for whomever wants it. They can print the images and documents you post or they can save it to their own computer.

Following are a couple examples of using 

a blog to share family history information.

The first blog holds images from a scrapbook. Sharing the scrapbook on a blog has several advantages over printing books for family members. One, it's free; two, it can be shared widely; three, it can be printed or downloaded by others...saving you time; and four, distant cousins (whom you may not even know) can find it on the web.

Shea Story Blog (Click Here)

The second blog holds documents and images. It's organized more like a file cabinet of information than like a scrapbook. Viewers can download or print anything from the blog.

Gramps and Mamaw's Girls Blog (Click Here)

Watch these short videos about

how to create a blog on Blogger:

Blog your Family History Part 1

(Click on "YouTube" at the bottom of the screen to 
watch it on YouTube with a larger screen.)

Blog Your Family History Part 2 

(Click on "YouTube" at the bottom of the screen to 
watch it on YouTube with a larger screen.)

Blog Your Family History Part 3

(Click on "YouTube" at the bottom of the screen to 
watch it on YouTube with a larger screen.)

Now go share your family history with your own blog!

Thine in the bonds of family history fun!  Caroleen

Dropbox - A Virtual Flash Drive

As great as a flash drive is for storing and easily moving your data, Dropbox is even better. Dropbox is a cloud based data storage site with benefits far beyond the basic storage a flash drive can deliver.

Reasons to Use Dropbox

1. Unlike a flash drive, you can't forget to take your Dropbox with you. You can't drop it in a sink, a puddle, or a bowl of soup. You can't step on it, drive over it, or mow it with your lawn mover. In other words...since you can't physically hold it, you can't physically lose it.

2. Your Dropbox can be accessed from any computer you've installed it on. If you're not connected to the Internet when you access your Dropbox, it will be synced to all your devices next time you're online.

3. Your Dropbox can be accessed from any computer that's connected to the Internet, whether or not Dropbox is installed on that computer. Just go to Dropbox.com and sign in to your account.

Image from Dropbox

4. Dropbox has an app for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. You can access your files on the go!

5. Dropbox allows you to share folders with others who can collaborate with you and edit files. No more emailing files to others and getting lost in multiple revisions.

6. A "Public" folder is available on your Dropbox which enables the sharing of files or folders without allowing edits or alterations.

7. A "Photos" folder is available on your Dropbox for sharing images with others by way of a unique link. They can only see the images you allow them to access.

Are you convinced? It's time to get started.

Go to the Dropbox website and watch the demo. Then download it to your computer and create an account.

Just about anything you need to learn about Dropbox can easily be found in videos at YouTube. Some users of Dropbox upload videos to YouTube (usually just out of the goodness of their hearts) in order to help others learn more about the service. Some are more professional than others, and some are in languages other than English, but you're sure to find a few that are beneficial to you.

Go to  YouTube (click here) and search topics such as "using Dropbox" or "Dropbox tutorials". 

Watch for further posts on FHClassNotes about specific features of Dropbox that are beneficial to your efforts in genealogy.

- Caroleen