By Steven and Jill Decker
Never has so much first-person family history been contributed by so many – and most do not even realize they are doing it. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media outlets are forces that can be utilized to document and share a family’s history in the here and now. They are modern methods to journal our activities and, unlike handwritten diaries and journals, they are accessible to multiple “friends” or “followers” at the same time. Often the history is accompanied by photographs.
Here are some recent social media subjects for our family:
- A trip to Bryce Canyon National Park and other vacations.
- A family member and coach commented about his association with student-athletes and about his association with the Tour of Utah.
- The preparation for our niece’s wedding.
- Thankfulness that a recent cranial surgery on an infant went well.
- Political views.
- Religious views.
- Bucket lists.
- Birthday wishes.
- Insights to senses of humor.
You can see the rich and varied story that is told through these simple, one-off posts.
Of course, social media is not without its issues when it comes to sharing family history. Not every social media claim is accurate: users may use profile pictures of heroes or loved ones rather than themselves or, for whatever reason, may say they are from a place to which they have never been. That said, imagine how many events and special occasions would pass unnoticed by large numbers of family and friends without social posts. Social media can be a great way to share family memories and instill a real sense of belonging among today’s spread-out families.
Here are some ideas and resources that can help you create your own social media strategy for family history:
- 3 Ways to Use Instagram for Family History by Tyler S. Stahle, blog post,
https://familysearch.org/blog/en/3-ways-instagram-family-history/. - Kludge Fellow of Digital Studies, Katrin Weller, also offers advice in a Library of Congress blog post, Preserving Social Media for Future Historians
(https://blogs.loc.gov/kluge/2015/07/preserving-social-media-for-future-historians/). - For ideas about how to use Pinterest see:
https://www.pinterest.com/conniesmith1/family-history/,
http://lisalisson.com/2015/06/25/pinterest-for-genealogists/,
or https://www.pinterest.com/familysearch/. - Facebook is Family History by Maggie Stevens, blog post,
https://familysearch.org/blog/en/facebook-family-history.
To be honest, family tree was one of the first things we made using RealtimeBoard, but this is the first time we decided to write about it. Family tree is useful not only when we talk about genealogy, but also when you’re writing a novel or scenario to your future movie. In this post we show some examples of our users’ family trees and give some tips for those who want to create a family tree in RealtimeBoard.
Steven and Jill –
Interesting concept. Recorded oral history and video interviews can now be added Facebook, even Instagram – to give relatives access to stories, morals and information.