Social Media for Family Historians – my first book!

Social Media for Family Historians, my first book, was published on Friday 22nd October 2010. It was launched at the Unlock The Past History and Genealogy Expo in Sydney.

It contains 76 pages in full colour to explain what social media is and why it is of use to family historians. It introduces more than 25 websites that can help family historians, and anyone with families, to communicate, share and collaborate with each other.

I think social media could have been designed specifically with family historians in mind. The networking that we do as researchers is made much easier by social media sites, and the interest that we have in distantly related family members is way beyond that of a normal person!

We can share our family trees, documents, photos and videos; use Skype to communicate across the world; and write a blog to share our discoveries with family members, and to allow others to find us.

Here is the Table of Contents:

• 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 Facebook
  • 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

The book is $19.50 plus postage. It will be available from Gould Genealogy any minute now, or directly from me. Email me if you are interested in purchasing a copy at carole (at) heritagegenealogy.com.au.