Facebook: Love It Or Hate It But Use It

Whether or not you use, or even like Facebook, it's here to stay. Mega-millions of posts every prove that people like you and me are using Facebook for a wide variety of reasons. Like I said, love it or hate it, it's here to stay so why not use it to your advantage?

Katherine Willson recognized the genealogy potential of Facebook many years ago. She began compiling a list of genealogy and family history groups that have a Facebook presence. As of 2021, it would take 436 pages to download that list of some nearly 17,000 listings. 

Nearly every genealogical and/or historical society in Washington boasts a Facebook page! Wouldn't you guess that every state has a page or two (or more) of such listings? Don't you think you might could learn something from them???

To access Katherine Willson's list, click to 

http://socialmediagenealogy.com/genealogy-on-facebook-list

As of 2021, Willson turned over management and updating of her list to CyndisList. So do check that out, too, for the most recent updates....... all categorized. 

Facebook - Under Construction

**Currently under construction**
This category is dedicated to Katherine R. Willson who created the original Genealogy on Facebook list. Katherine turned over maintenance of the list to me in January 2021 so that I could carry on that work.

Railroad History Bits, Pt. 2

 

* Chicago became the nation's leading rail center by 1860

* Railroads reached the Mississippi River in 1854; first railroad bridge over the Mighty Mo was in 1856.

* West coast rail operations began in Sacramento Valley in 1856 with two locomotives that had been brought around Cape Horn by ship.

* The first railroad tunnel was built in 1833 near Johnstown, Pennsylvania; it was about 900 feet long.

* The hook-headed spike used by railroads to fasten rails to crossties was first patented in 1840.

* As of December 2021, CyndisList had 382 links under the topic of railroads............ go learn more! 

Cyndi Ingle is coming to town...................

Cyndi Ingle has been compiling and making available to us her CyndisList since she was a little kid in bunny slippers. I well remember attending my first seminar where she spoke..... we were all sitting there expectantly and in she waltzes from the back of the room in her fuzzy robe and bunny slippers. And her point was that using Cyndis List you can do genealogy from home "in your robe and slippers." That point was not lost on me!

Today she is a beautiful lady, with a son beginning college, and her Cyndis List has nearly 300,000 genealogy links! And she maintains this website mostly all by herself. 

CyndisList has links to something under every letter of the alphabet except X-Y-Z. For Antarctica--126 links.  For Free Stuff---407 links.  For Organizing Your Research---303 links. For Japan--107 links. For Africa---126 links.

Now if she has that many links to those presumably less requested topics, imagine how many she has for Research in Ohio or DNA Research or Cemetery Research.

CyndisList has been a goldmine for 30 years and continues to be one of the most valuable tools in our genealogy toolbox. 

For more information on the EWGS upcoming seminar on October 3rd with Cyndi Ingle, click to our website, www.EWGSI.org

EWGS Invites Cyndi Ingle for 2015

Now known by her maiden name (since her divorce), Cyndi Ingle gave a wonderful presentation last weekend in Sumner, Washington, at the Heritage Quest Research Library's AutumnQuest. She took over an hour to explain and teach us CyndisList 2.0........ all the new updates, changes and re-vamps. And it is still all hers; all 300,000+ links are verified, added and checked by her alone. Whew! What a great job she does.

Best of all, she verbally promised to me that she would come to EWGS in 2015!! She's never been to Eastern Washington and said eagerly that she would come. Assuming that the Board and membership would want her to come???

Cyndis List ( www.cyndislist.com ) is "a categorized and cross-referenced index to genealogical resources on the Internet." Telling by example of how up-to-date she keeps her list, she told how she'd recently added an "Antarctica" and a "Schwenkfelder (a church group) category to her list. And yes, there are links at the Antarctica site.....there are folks buried in Antarctica, did you know?

I have a dual recommendation: check out, use and benefit from CyndisList and stay tuned to the EWGS calendar for when Cyndi comes in 2015.