My first book, Social Media for Family Historians, was published in late 2010 by Unlock The Past. It explains what social media is; what use it is; and introduces you to more than 25 social media sites that can help family historians to communicate, share and collaborate with other family historians and with their own families.

It covers new ways to communicate such as Sykpe and SecondLife; social networking sites such as Facebook and GenealogyWise; blogs and microblogs such as Twitter; sites for sharing family trees such as Ancestry and MyHeritage; sites for sharing photos and videos such as Flickr and YouTube; and community information sites such as wikis and social bookmarking.It explains in some detail how to get started with Facebook and blogging.

Contents:
Preface
1. Introduction
2. What is Social Media?
- The Internet
- Self-publishing
- Social media
3. Why use it?
- Advantages
- Disadvantages
4. Communication
- Chat
- Mailing Lists and Forums
- Social Networking
- Blogs
- Microblogging
- Virtual Worlds
5. Sharing
- Family Trees
- Photographs
- Videos
- Social Cataloguing
6. Collaboration
- Wikis
- Social Bookmarking
- Documents
- Questions and Answers
7. Dangers
- Risks
- Some Simple Rules
8. What Are You Waiting For?
Appendix 1. How to Get Started with Facebook
- Sign Up For Faebook
- Using Facebook
Appendix 2. How to Get Started with Blogging
- Find a Host
- Create an Account
- Name Your Blog
- Set Security
- Create your Profile
- Select a Design
- Start Writing!
- More Advanced Blogging
Glossary
Index

You can buy it from Gould Genealogy, and I hope you do!

• Follow an archive day on Twitter
  Today is Follow An Archive day on Twitter. Twitter users around the world are tweeting about their favourite archives, and archives around the world are tweeting about themselves, using the hashtag #f...
• Another genealogy community website – Sirius Genealogy 2.0
  Yesterday I received an email about a new website called Sirius Genealogy 2.0. The email said, in part: Sirius Genealogy 2.0 (SG2) is pleased to announce that we have completed our transformation fro...
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  The last of the four Unlock The Past Expos was held this weekend in Geelong, and it was the biggest and best ever. It was held at the Geelong Arena, the home of the Geelong Supercats (a basketball tea...
• My DNA results have arrived!
  I have previously written about beginning my DNA adventures with a test with 23andMe, a company that focuses more on the health aspects of genetics than the genealogical aspects. They had an offer I c...
• My Top Twitter Followers
  My top Twitter followers of 200 according to http://mytopfollowersin2010.com This site gives you the option of tweeting a list of your top followers, which I did. The tweet it generated was: M...

• Social Media for Family Historians
  My first book, Social Media for Family Historians, was published in late 2010 by Unlock The Past. It explains what social media is; what use it is; and introduces you to more than 25 social media site...
• Follow an archive day on Twitter
  Today is Follow An Archive day on Twitter. Twitter users around the world are tweeting about their favourite archives, and archives around the world are tweeting about themselves, using the hashtag #f...
• Compare Twitter Account Followers
  I manage three Twitter accounts: @CaroleRiley is my personal account @NSWGenealogy is my business account @SocAustGen is the account I manage on behalf of my genealogy society I often wonder w...

Today is Follow An Archive day on Twitter. Twitter users around the world are tweeting about their favourite archives, and archives around the world are tweeting about themselves, using the hashtag #followanarchive.

I’ve learned about a lot of archives I didn’t know about, and a lot that I did know about but didn’t know they used Twitter. Here are a couple of examples:

@BaselineLPMA  NSW Land and Property Management Authority Heritage Information

website at http://www.baseline.nsw.gov.au, which pulls together the information of most interest to historians and genealogists.

@naagovau National Archives of Australia

website at http://www.naa.gov.au. The National Archives started only their Twitter account today and had 100 followers by the end of the day!

@followanarchive Follow An Archive

website at http://followanarchive.blogspot.com/ which lists all the archives taking part.

I’ve been following this on and off all day, and it has been so much fun learning about new archives (new to me, anyway) and seeing what they are all up to. It’s after 11pm here in Sydney now, so no more Twittering for me. The Americans are just waking up so it will keep getting better!

Have a look: http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23followanarchive

• Unlock The Past Expo Victoria
  The last of the four Unlock The Past Expos was held this weekend in Geelong, and it was the biggest and best ever. It was held at the Geelong Arena, the home of the Geelong Supercats (a basketball tea...
• Social Media for Family Historians
  My first book, Social Media for Family Historians, was published in late 2010 by Unlock The Past. It explains what social media is; what use it is; and introduces you to more than 25 social media site...
• My DNA results have arrived!
  I have previously written about beginning my DNA adventures with a test with 23andMe, a company that focuses more on the health aspects of genetics than the genealogical aspects. They had an offer I c...
• My Top Twitter Followers
  My top Twitter followers of 200 according to http://mytopfollowersin2010.com This site gives you the option of tweeting a list of your top followers, which I did. The tweet it generated was: M...
• Another genealogy community website – Sirius Genealogy 2.0
  Yesterday I received an email about a new website called Sirius Genealogy 2.0. The email said, in part: Sirius Genealogy 2.0 (SG2) is pleased to announce that we have completed our transformation fro...

I manage three Twitter accounts:

@CaroleRiley is my personal account

@NSWGenealogy is my business account

@SocAustGen is the account I manage on behalf of my genealogy society

I often wonder whether I should just post to one account because all the same people follow all three accounts. I found a way to find out if this is true.

FollowerWonk allows you to compare two, or optionally three, accounts, and compares them by followers or followees. I compared all three accounts and the results looks like this:

This screen shows the followers of all three accounts. I can see who is following all three, or combinations of two, or just the one. The Venn diagram graphically illustrates the overlap and the relative size of each following. I can do the same for the accounts that these accounts follow. Brilliant!

What I’ve discovered is how little overlap there is. So I can post to all three without fear, and I can retweet between them without too much risk of repeating myself.

• Social Media for Family Historians
  My first book, Social Media for Family Historians, was published in late 2010 by Unlock The Past. It explains what social media is; what use it is; and introduces you to more than 25 social media site...
• My Top Twitter Followers
  My top Twitter followers of 200 according to http://mytopfollowersin2010.com This site gives you the option of tweeting a list of your top followers, which I did. The tweet it generated was: M...
• Follow an archive day on Twitter
  Today is Follow An Archive day on Twitter. Twitter users around the world are tweeting about their favourite archives, and archives around the world are tweeting about themselves, using the hashtag #f...