The Changing Face of Genealogy Collaboration

We talk about collaboration and telling the stories of our family almost as though it is something new. Surely this is the real reason why so many of us get interested in genealogy in the first instance. Whatever our age we all like to hear about things that have happened be it last week or last century.

This month I have decided to write about collaboration and how the perception of genealogy has changed due to the internet and our increasing use of what is available to connect with others.

When I first started researching our family history (I am also researching my husband's family) the internet was in its infancy and we were on dial up. This was expensive and you would go online pick up your emails and read them later.

Collaborating with others was difficult but not impossible and like many others I used some of the Rootsweb mailing lists of relevance to my research interests.

The only other way of communicating with fellow researchers was to belong to a family history society to find other researchers and contact them by post.

Research in those early days, even just finding a reference to order a certificate, meant heading off to record offices or local archives where you had to trawl through microfiche or film to find what you wanted. There were some indexes available mainly through local family history societies which did help you find the right roll of film.

Programmes like WDYTYA http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007t575 which is showing its 11th series in the UK have changed public perception and sparked interest in the hobby. Despite only a small proportion of the resources available being online, what is there has made a difference to the way we both conduct and record our research.

These changes have taken place over a relatively short space of time and it is true that there are those who have not truly embraced the changes.

There has been discussion on social networks about how family history societies may need to change to connect with the needs of their members. Some have been forward thinking and have reached out to researchers across the world by providing access to online education but this may not be an avenue that every society can or should copy.

The societies I belong to in England have changed some of the things they do but we must not forget that they rely upon volunteers. The direction that each society takes will depend upon who has the time and inclination to commit to the development of that society. This can lead to a society stagnating because none of its members has the inclination or time to commit to change. If you belong to a society which may be stuck in the past don’t forget to make suggestions, they may get ignored, but any society is only as good as its members are willing to make it.

What do you want from your society? Don’t forget to tell those who help run the society, you may find that others think the same.

I have mentioned discussion on social networks and these have become the equivalent of the mailing lists of the past but more. Facebook has groups for genealogy and Google+ has its communities. There are also others such as Twitter and Pintrest. Whereas we communicated by email and text in the past we now have a much more visual way of sharing. This has enhanced our ability to share our experiences but opened up more challenges when we publish online what might be copyrighted. Will these copyright challenges limit our experience?

We also interact using our blogs such as this one and many other individual blogs see Geneabloggers http://www.geneabloggers.com/genealogy-blogs/  maintained by Thomas MacEntee.

Whilst webinars http://blog.geneawebinars.com/ are an educational resource they can help provide pointers to things you may not be aware of and they are a great way to get information to those who may not be able to get to conferences or other genealogy events.

Video blogging using the Hangouts on Air on Google+ is becoming increasingly popular and allows genealogists from across the world to communicate by live discussion. They can also be used as a tool similar to webinars and a way to share how you do things.

To finish I would like to tell you about a Google+ community I am setting up to discuss how we get our genealogy software to work for us.

I will post on my blog http://masteringgenealogysoftware.blogspot.co.uk/ when I launch. I want this to be a discussion forum so that we can learn from each other, we all need to collaborate.

Do you use Twitter for genealogy?

What social media do you use to keep in touch with other genealogists and family historians?

You could be passing on tips, asking for or giving help, alerting your geneamates to new resources, talking about your successes (and setbacks), reporting from genealogy conferences, sharing a joke, having a grumble, just saying ‘hi’... the list is huge.

My favourite ways include blogging (no surprise there), Facebook and Google+, thought I admit I’ve been away from them for a while because my non-genealogy life has been mega-busy recently. I like Pinterest, though I don’t use it much for genealogy, and HistoryPin is a great idea. But today I’m going to think about one which has become central to my social and family history activities.

Photo by freakgirl on flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I realised that today is my third Twitterversary. Yay! I can’t believe I’ve been tweeting for so long. It took me a while to join, because I’d got the impression that it was all about meals you’d eaten, or how much you love a band/celebrity, or trolling people you disagree with. And yes, that does go on, but not in ‘my’ Twitter. Which is one of the reasons I like it.

Twitter is so customisable. When I started out, I had a shortish list of people I followed: genealogists, bloggers, family history sites, a couple of fun ones and some friends. I was using Twitter specifically to communicate with the worldwide genealogy community, which is why I tweet as @ARebelHand instead of using my real name.

But I soon realised that if I wanted to follow any more tweeps (Twitter people), I’d need to get organised. And my goodness, there were enough great people to follow! So I sorted them into lists. One for general genealogy, one for Australia, another for Ireland, a fourth for the UK... you get the idea. And I could just look at tweets from people in that list, if I wanted to, instead of seeing everybody’s in my timeline. You can put someone in any number of lists, like you can put people in more than one circle in Google+. It’s a good way to manage all that information rushing down your timeline like a flooded river.

Then I discovered #hashtags. Of course, you don’t need to use them, and a tweet with too many hashtags can look a bit desperate for attention, but they’re a great way to get a picture of what people are saying about one particular subject. It could be general #genealogy talk, or reports on an event like #wdytyalive (Who Do You Think You Are Live in the UK) or #rootstech in the States, or Australia’s #unlockthepast cruises. Just type # plus the topic (all one word) into Twitter search, and... shazam! Lots of tweets from all over the world, from familiar names and from new ones you may end up following.

Larry the Twitter Bird's family tree? For credits see end of post

Another way to manage timeline overload and get some focus is to concentrate on one person you’re interested in. See a retweet (RT) and wonder about who the original tweeter is? Click on their username (begins with @). A new window will pop up with a profile summary, which contains a short bio and their two most recent tweets. If you want to find out more, scroll down to the bottom of the summary window and click on ‘Go to full profile’ and you’ll be able to read their tweets and retweets, and follow them if you want to.

The best thing for me about Twitter is that it works as my personalised news feed. If I’ve got some time to spare, I do love just letting my timeline wash over me, following up all the interesting-looking links and finding wonderful gems I never imagined existed. Of course this does waste pass quite a lot of time, but it’s as self-indulgent as a box of chocolates and totally non-fattening.

And if you thought genealogy was addictive (I’m willing to bet you do), here’s a warning – so is Twitter. That’s one reason why I’ve been focusing on ways to manage that seductive stream of 140-character goodies.

This isn’t even an attempt at writing a guide to Twitter, by the way. It’s just a snippet of some of the ways I use it. I’ll add some useful how-to links at the end.

The genealogy community is wonderful for passing on information, helping one another and providing support and laughs. I know some of my fellow bloggers here on Worldwide Genealogy are great at posting on Facebook and using the facilities of Google+. We’re a social bunch. So I’d love to know what social media you use for genealogy, and why. Pull up a chair and have a slice of cake!

Useful links about using Twitter: 

Digital Trends

Mashable

A fun one

... and Cyndi's list of links for Twitter and genealogy 

Image credits for Twitter 'family tree':
Dark blue birds, top left: Ceridian Index, via Creative Commons
Three cartoon birds, top right: freedesignfiles, via Creative Commons, attribution 3.0
Twitter logos by Twitter