Using Social Networking as a Genealogy Tool: Facebook

This post is the first in a series on using social networking sites as tool for genealogy. Keep an eye out for future posts in the series

One free genealogy resource you may be overlooking is social networking sites. Because of the widespread popularity of sites such as Facebook and MySpace, many people are now using them to continue their genealogy research.

Facebook offers a number of options for those building their family tree, including groups, pages and applications. The Facebook Genealogy Group, for instance, is over 6,000 members strong. You can post your brick walls or surnames of interest to the wall so others can help out, or join one of the many discussions on the group message boards. There are other smaller genealogy groups as well.

You may able to find help with the Ancestorville Genealogy or Olive Tree Genealogy pages. If you want to stay up to date with what is going on in genealogy, be sure to check out the page for Family Tree Magazine. You will find that some pages have discussion boards while others don't.

Applications such as Family Tree and GenSeek allow you to connect with family members already on Facebook. They also offer suggestions of other potential family members based on who others in your tree have added.

These are just a few of the many free genealogy tools you can find on Facebook. Don't forget to try searching for surname groups to connect with others researching the same names. I didn't have luck with all the surnames in my tree, but several were represented by groups.

Last but not least. If you haven't already, stop by the Free Genealogy Resources page. It's new so a work in progress, but i hope to see it grow to be a nice genealogy tool.