If you read my earlier post, you'll know that Eastern Washington Genealogical Society recently added a Facebook page. You may be wondering, "Why should EWGS--or any society for that matter--have a Facebook page?"
Facebook is one of the fastest growing social media websites on the Internet. By social media, we mean a way that people connect with one another. It is a free way of getting EWGS publicized to our community and to the world. Suppose you lived in another part of the country and had ancestors that lived in Eastern Washington? By doing a search on Facebook, you could connect with EWGS and find out about our society. Others who are merely curious will find a Brief History of EWGS (written by Bette Topp) and our society objectives listed on the Facebook page. I'll bet that in the past, only EWGS members knew our history and objectives. Now everyone on Facebook can know and discover what an amazing society EWGS is! There are links to our site and to this blog as well, and soon we'll have photos up of our Walking with the Ancestors cemetery tour from July.
Since you now know about EWGS having a page on Facebook, you might discover a society Facebook page in one of your ancestral locations as well! I searched for "genealogical society" in Facebook's search engine and came up with 396 societies besides our own. I also searched for "genealogy society" and came up with 19 results. When I searched for "historical society," it yielded over 500 pages!
Many people are becoming interested in genealogy, especially with television shows such as PBS's "Faces of America," NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" and BYU-TV's "The Generations Project." We know that senior citizens are probably the age group with the most interest in genealogy (although younger age groups are also very interested!). Did you know that the senior citizens group is also the fastest-growing age group on Facebook? So--all those seniors, getting on Facebook to connect with their grandkids and old classmates and military buddies--they now can also connect with genealogy societies around the world through Facebook pages! It's a win-win situation!
Be sure to "Like" EWGS's Facebook page here or click on the link in the right-hand menu of this blog!
P.S. If you're not a Facebook user and/or you're wondering how else Facebook can be used for genealogy, you won't want to miss Thomas MacEntee's presentation, "Facebook for Genealogists," one of five presentations he's giving for our Annual October Workshop this coming October 1 and 2, 2010!
Written for the 4th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogical Societies: Genealogical Societies on Facebook.
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