Facebook and the Genealogist

Back in September I went to the Harvest Your Family Tree hosted by the Kelowna and District Genealogical Society. Mark your calendar for September 2016 as it is BC's biggest conference and is held every two years and was attended by over 200 amateur and professional genealogists.

As part of the goody bag from the conference I could take a free online course from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. I just started "Social Media Tools for the Wise Genealogist."

Module 1 suggested a some new Facebook sites for family history and I came across a link to Genealogy à la carte and her post "Facebook for Canadian genealogy." She discusses her initial reluctance to use social media for genealogy until she discovered groups. I agree with her that the groups are great. You can get notifications about new resources coming available, resources you might not have considered, and so forth. For example, through the County Waterford History & Genealogy Facebook page, I just learnt that by summer 2015, the National Library of Ireland will have a dedicated website making its collection of Catholic parish register microfilms freely available online. I can't wait!

Gail Dever of Genealogy à la carte has compiled a listing of genealogical societies, historical societies, national and provincial archives, museums, United Empire Loyalist groups, and special interest groups for Canadian genealogy; you can download it from the bottom of her post.

Try out some of the pages and let me know if you found some favourites.