The German Genealogy group on Facebook is the largest and arguably most important forum available to German researchers on social networking sites.
Social media websites are a powerful presence on the Internet. Even if you normally only use Facebook as an electronic photo album, you may become a media maven yourself when you see some groups or pages that offer a bucketful of genealogy help! In addition, you may want to “put yourself out there” on social media sites as a way of attracting attention to your genealogy brick walls and interests. Co-host of the Genealogy Guys Podcast, Drew Smith, wrote Social Networking for Genealogists (Genealogical Publishing Company) back in 2009, and its insights on using social platforms like Facebook <www.facebook.com> for genealogy are still relevant.
In this chapter, we’ll provide some ideas on using social media sites to your best advantage. We’ll look at social media megasite Facebook first since it has the most utility for researchers.
Facebook’s complex “page” and “group” structure gives it the most potential among the major social media sites to help in your quest to find German roots.
People with similar interests can create and administer groups, producing a forum that can help generate new research ideas as well as help with the toughest of research problems. With more than a billion registered users, you’ll find a Facebook group for pretty much any topic, and German genealogy certainly hasn’t been left out. Check out these family history-focused Facebook groups to see what they might be able to do for you.
This group describes itself as a forum for “networking with those conducting German genealogical research, in order to provide help and resources to others researching German genealogy.” Image A. shows the setup of the group’s page at <www.facebook.com/groups/GermanGenealogy>.
The German Genealogy group on Facebook is the largest and arguably most important forum available to German researchers on social networking sites.
Facebook threads seem to stay around forever. Go back over the last few months of postings and comments to see what websites users have referenced and view the solutions given to other researchers’ problems so you don’t end up asking for the same information.
The group’s administrators aggressively fight spamming and attempts by anyone to solicit business, and the result is a reliable forum for thoughtful and helpful discussion. With more than fourteen thousand members as of this writing, someone in the group is bound to have run into a similar difficult issue that you’re facing as you attempt to trace your German lineage. This group can also be used as a forum to request transcription and translation help for documents written in German.
According to the group’s page, you should follow this step-by-step guide to receive assistance from other group members:
You may be able to find someone using this method who enjoys working with German documents and may be willing to transcribe and/or translate your document for free or at a fraction of the cost of contracting with a professional in the field.
One caveat to this group is that it is closed, meaning that you have to request membership, then wait for an administrator to approve it. As a result, it may take some time to get going depending on the administrators’ response time.
Facebook serves up what it considers the “top posts” as part of your Facebook notification feed (“News Feed”); realize that what the algorithm considers “top posts” may not jive with your particular interests. Once you’re accepted, you’ll likely need to go to the group’s page itself to see all postings and users’ comments.
Ahnenforschung means genealogy (or, literally, “ancestry research”) in German, and likewise this group <www.facebook.com/groups/358990344127948> is naturally geared towards German genealogy, although it doesn’t say so explicitly. With posts and administration in both German and English and close to four thousand members, this group can be a potentially valuable resource for sparking new ideas and gaining a better understanding of German genealogy. Again, this is a closed group, so you will need to wait to be approved by an administrator before you can post.
FEEFHS stands for the Foundation for East European Family History Studies (what an acronym!). Although this group <www.facebook.com/groups/278430439787> doesn’t necessarily bill itself as a research help forum (rather, the group’s president would like to “direct the energies of the organization toward indexing and other record discovery projects”), plenty of posts ask for assistance and garner professional-level responses, like one detailing the difference between a Kirche (church) and a Bethaus (prayer hall).
At just about a thousand members, this group has considerably less breadth of membership compared to the German Genealogy and Ahnenforschung groups. However, FEEFHS offers a public group, meaning you don’t have to wait for an administrator to approve your membership before you jump in and start posting. Try to be specific about the problem you are encountering or the piece of information you are trying to obtain. Note that this probably would not be a good forum for posting transcription or translation requests.
Facebook is a huge site, so you’ll certainly encounter even more groups that you’ll find helpful in your research. For example, a closed group called Genealogy Translations <www.facebook.com/groups/genealogytranslation> focuses on translations (from any language) in a genealogical context, as its name implies. You’ll find many family-specific groups on Facebook as well. The site has a powerful search engine, so try searching [family name] Family in the box at the top of the page. People in these groups won’t always be from the same lines of the family name, but you may be able to gain insight into what specific areas clusters of people with the surname you are researching came from or live today.
The skill level of people on social media sites will vary and people may not clearly self-identify. You may want to collect a “second opinion” from a member of a different group before trusting information presented on these platforms.
Facebook has “pages” for pretty much anything you can think of (including articles on Wikipedia, which serve as topics that link to groups and pages, and user-created pages designed to promote a specific thing). Consider “liking” (i.e., following) the Genealogy field of study (search Genealogy from the Facebook main page), and you may soon find that Facebook’s algorithms are tailoring your news feed to posts that have to do with family history research.
When you see interesting posts about genealogy, be sure to like the page that generated it, and over time you will notice that your news feed increasingly features the topic of genealogy.
Facebook is not the only social media tool out there. You can also get some leads and instruction by utilizing other resources as well.
Twitter <www.twitter.com> is for what’s known as microblogging, or sending messages (“tweets”) that are limited to 140 characters. Further, tweets are organized, not by type or subject, but by hashtags, which are meant to categorize tweets and tie them to other messages sent across the platform. These are manually input by users sending the tweet by using the pound sign (#) to accompany messages. Needless to say, this does not create great conditions for in-depth discussions about genealogical research problems. However, while tweets must be short, they may contain clickable references to other websites or articles about German genealogy that may be helpful to you.
Like Facebook, Twitter has a news feed where you’re able to view the tweets of accounts you “follow” in real time, and that’s where Twitter’s true utility lies. Try searching the name of the organization or town using Twitter’s search feature along the top of the page, then click the Follow button. Genealogical organizations like Ancestry.com (@ancestry, image B.), publications like Family Tree Magazine (@FamilyTreeMag), and individual personalities in the genealogical community have Twitter accounts. You may want to follow German-themed organizations (for example, archives or genealogical societies) or German towns that you come across to stay on top of the latest happenings, as many of them have Twitter handles (another word for “accounts,” indicated by the “at sign,” @).
Many genealogical services and societies, such as Ancestry.com, share resources via Twitter. Ancestry.com sends its tweeted messages (which can view under the Tweets tab) to its seventy-three thousand followers.
If you’re not finding answers on social media sites, create your own Facebook page or Twitter account and start posting—as you gain likes and followers, you may find someone coming to you with an answer to your genealogy challenges!
Searching German genealogy on YouTube <www.youtube.com> yields quite a few videos specifically about the topic (image C.). As with any information obtained from social media, try to verify the credentials and skills of the person posting the video before investing too much time watching instructional videos. Ancestry.com <www.ancestry.com> has a channel on YouTube <www.youtube.com/user/AncestryCom>; many of Ancestry.com’s are available through their website as well.
YouTube users have uploaded thousands of videos related to German genealogy, from interviews with professional genealogists to Ancestry.com tutorials.
Other social media sites that generate some of the highest levels of traffic on the Internet are LinkedIn <www.linkedin.com> (professional networking), Pinterest <www.pinterest.com> (online pinboard), and Instagram <www.instagram.com> (photo and video sharing). While you may be able to find an interesting post here and there on the topic of German genealogy on these sites, your time likely will be better spent researching and discussing elsewhere.