At times, you might want to talk to a fellow genealogist to resolve problems you’re encountering in your research. The online world can help you there too, with more ways than you can shake a stick at. Twitter, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video chat programs, and instant messaging can all help you make personal connections with other genealogists.
When you send messages, pictures, and videos to a public online site such as Twitter, that has been called “microblogging”—a web blog in tiny snippets. When you exchange voice, video, or text messages with just one person, that comes under the blanket of instant messaging.
Twitter has become a phenomenon as well as an Internet application. Twitter is free, and it combines social networking with blogging on a very small scale. With it, you can send and receive messages, links, and more.
When you send something on Twitter, it is called a tweet. A tweet is a message of no more than 140 characters on your Twitter profile page delivered to your followers, who are people who have subscribed to your tweets. Tweets can also be links to pictures, sound files, or videos.
You can choose who will see your tweets, or open it up to the world (the latter is the default). You can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) on your smart phone, or external applications.
Note
While Twitter itself costs nothing to use, accessing it through your smart phone’s SMS (text messages) could rack up fees from your phone service provider, as each tweet will be a text message.
That 140-character limit also spurred usage of URL-shortening services such as tinyurl, bit.ly, and tr.im, where you can shorten a long address to just a few characters.
Since Jack Dorsey created it in 2006, millions of people have started using Twitter. Alexa web traffic analysis ranks Twitter as one of the 50 most popular websites in the world. And of course, genealogists are among them (see Figure 6-1).
FIGURE 6-1. Genealogy tweeting is very popular.
An example:
ACoffin @epcrowe I use Twitter to share #genealogy news, hi-lite blog posts and ask reference-type questions.
ACoffin @epcrowe I also use Twitter as a #genealogy news feed of sorts. If it happens, someone will post it here, asap.
Your eyes are glazing over. I can see it. Okay, let’s unpack this.
Note
A really good explanation of how Twitter works is at www.momthisishowtwitterworks.com/. I highly recommend it.
Replies and Mentions
Once you sign up for Twitter (a simple process, but it requires a valid e-mail address), you can have the program search your AOL, Google, or Yahoo! address books under “Find People.” Everyone has a “handle,” or user name, often some short version of a real name or a company.
An @reply is a message sent from one person to another, although everyone who follows them can see it. You should put the “@username” at the beginning of the message. When a message begins with @username, the Twitter software considers it a public reply. You do not have to be following someone to reply to that person, and all your replies and mentions are shown in the @username tab in your home page sidebar.
Note
A tweet that begins with @username is a reply, and a tweet with @username anywhere else in the message is considered a mention. Both kinds of messages will be collected to your sidebar and are public. A tweet that starts with the single letter D will be sent directly and privately. A tweet that starts with @someone will be public and show up as a mention. Also, you can send a private reply by starting the message with a D and a space, then the username to whom you are replying, then you are sending a private message. You can only send a direct message to a person who follows you. When you receive a direct message, it goes to your direct message inbox, which you access through the Direct Message tab in the sidebar in your home page. You can set your e-mail preferences to get an e-mail from Twitter when you get a direct message.
Hashtags
With all those millions of users tweeting 24 hours a day, seven days a week, how on earth do you find the messages that might interest you? Hashtags: using an octothorpe (#) to tag a message’s topic.
The Twitter community created hashtags because the Twitter software had no easy way to sort out the tweets by category or add extra data with that 140-character limit. Hashtags have the octothorpe “hash” or “pound” symbol (#) preceding the tag—for example, #genealogy, #FamilyHistory, #DNA, or #ancestry. While the hashtags can occur anywhere in the tweet, often, you will find them at the end.
Success Story: Amy Coffin Uses Twitter for Genealogy
Amy Coffin, MLIS, is a genealogy and records research librarian, blogger, and researcher (http://amycoffin.com) who uses Twitter daily.
“I use Twitter mainly as a news aggregator,” she said. “I seek out the genealogy-related people and vendors I want to follow, and they are the only ones who show up in my Twitter stream. Twitter gets a bad rap from those who have never used it or don’t see its value. I tell people Twitter is like television. There’s a lot of junk on Twitter, just like there’s a lot of junk on television. The key is finding what you want to see and blocking out everything else. There is useful genealogy information to be had on Twitter—you just need to set your account up so it comes to you.”
She also uses it for live reporting just as people in many fields do. For example, conference attendees send live tweets right from the conference, allowing discussion about the event between those who are attending and those who are not.
“Usually before a conference, a dedicated ‘hashtag’ is established and everyone attending or talking about the conference uses that hashtag in their tweets. This makes them more searchable and distributes the information better. For example, I’m attending the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree where the hashtag will be #scgs14. If you search Twitter using “#scgs14” during that time, you will see all the tweets about the conference,” she said.
It also serves as her “mini-reference desk,” she said. She uses her Twitter account to ask questions of other genealogists and librarians that she follows.
“Once, I had a distant cousin tell me that our great-great-grandfather was given acknowledgement in a book of an award-winning author. Could this be true? I sent a request to all my librarian Twitter followers and had my answer in minutes,” Amy said.
Other uses Amy has found: publicity for her blog entries and friendship.
“I’ve become friends with many of my Twitter followers. It’s always exciting to meet them for the first time at genealogy events,” she said.
These hashtags are not an official element of Twitter, but they have become standard practice. You can see in Twitter Search that hashtag terms are often in trending topics.
Using Hashtags
If you add a hashtag to your tweet and you have a public account, anyone who does a search for that hashtag can find your tweet. There are no formal rules for hashtags, except never use one for spamming. Nevertheless, even though any word with a # in front could be considered a hashtag keyword, some are more commonly used.
It is a good idea to use them sparingly and always relevantly. A maximum of three hashtags to a message is considered good form.
As they have become accepted, you can now search for hashtags not only in Twitter, but also in Google and other search engines. If you search for #FamilyHistory and come up with good results, you can click “Save This Search” and have a link to all recent tweets with that hashtag. You can also create an RSS feed of your favorite searches, again with a single click.
But notice above the “any other keyword.” If you search on anything—your surname, a noun, even a verb—you’re likely to find tweets that match. The hashtag will help you filter out messages from someone named Powell from messages about a Powell.
You can also create lists of Twitter users to follow, which is another way to quickly categorize the tweet feed. Twitter lists are groups of people whose tweets you want to stay current on. If want to see the tweets of someone without adding that person to your follow inventory, lists let you to do that.
The Twitter software allows you to build lists several ways. Usually, you start one by clicking Lists and then New. You can also make the list public (everyone can see it) or private (only you can see it). At this writing, you are limited to 1,000 lists per account, which should do. However, some public lists are very useful, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Check out these lists:
twitter.com/TamuraJones/lists/geneawavers
twitter.com/AncestryDetect/lists/genealogy
twitter.com/BBPetura/lists/genealogy-family-history3
twitter.com/EnduringLifecom/lists/genealogist
twitter.com/OnlineGenGuy/lists/genealogy-tweets
twitter.com/TamuraJones/lists/genealogists@hikari17/
genealogysocieties
With public lists like these, you can start following several genealogists with a click and avoid building a list of 166 different accounts all by yourself. On the other hand, you can add people who tweet (including yourself!) to a list from most screens on Twitter. Just look for the “Lists” button.
On your Twitter home page, find the Lists link, which will bring up your lists page. On this lists page, you can do list maintenance, such as editing the list name and deleting the list from your profile. Following a list looks just like following any other Twitter user. Go to the list page and click Follow underneath the name of the list you want to read. You can quickly view your subscribed lists, as well as lists that you created yourself, on the sidebar. You can always remove yourself from a list by blocking its creator.
As of this writing, some 30 applications are available in various smart phone and tablet platforms for using Twitter, including the one from Twitter itself. These programs range in price from free to about $20, but my favorite at the moment is the free application called Twitterrific.
VoIP and Video Chat
When you use your web camera, a microphone, and maybe even earphones to communicate with others, you are probably using VoIP to video chat. There are many ways to do this: Google Plus, Facebook, Microsoft Cloud, and Skype just to name a few. How can a genealogist use these programs? Well, talking to distant relatives for free is one way. Recording video journals of your research is another. Most often, they are used to conduct online meetings, seminars (webinars), and chats. DearMYRTLE’s Mondays with Myrt are an example of a way to use Google Hangouts, as in Figure 6-2.
FIGURE 6-2. Mondays with Myrt is one way to learn about genealogy using video, in this case Google Hangouts On Air.
An additional use: instant messaging. Most of these programs can communicate in text messages, send files, and do all the other tasks an instant messaging program such as AIM or Windows Messenger can do. And many of them have versions for laptops, tablets, and smart phones as well.
Google+ gets a lot of snarky putdowns online, but there is no doubt that Google Hangouts and On Air are growing in popularity. Google products you can use include audio/video/text programs for communication over the Internet using VoIP. Google Hangouts and On Air can be saved and posted to YouTube, so it has proven very popular with online genealogists like DearMYRTLE. It is also high definition, which many other programs such as Skype are not.
Skype
Skype is available for systems running Linux, Linux-based Maemo, Mac OS X (Intel and PC), iPhone OS (iPhone and iPod Touch), Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, Vista, Windows Mobile), and even gaming systems from Sony and Xbox. There is a pay version that lets you call any phone number, whether on Skype or not, but most people use the free version, even though you can only use it to communicate with other Skype users. With some helper programs like Wiretap Studio and Pamela, you can also record and post Skype calls. However, on some platforms, Skype is not as high definition as is Google Hangouts.
Facebook, Yahoo! et al
Instant messaging programs such as AOL Instant Message (AIM), Yahoo!, and so on now integrate with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others. Furthermore, Facebook itself now has a video message function as well as the IM function.
Similarly, Windows Live Messenger is now integrated with Skype as well as with the Windows cloud apps such as mail and document storage.
All of these can be used to chat live or delayed delivery, both with text and with audio/visual messages. Again, the main use for a genealogist for these is to connect with relatives, share research and lookups, and attend virtual gatherings of different groups.
Instant Messaging
IM has been around for 20 years, thanks in large part to America Online’s Instant Messenger program, known to users as AIM, and MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Chat, and other similar programs. In this form of messaging, a select list of people (from two to a whole “room”) exchange typed messages in real time.
The other most common chat program is a Java-based chat that shows in your web browser. As long as you have the latest version of Java on your computer, nothing else is needed to participate. Different programs enable you to have one-on-one or multiperson conversations with people. Some require you to sign on to a chat server, where the program you use doesn’t matter. Others only let you chat with people using the same program and who have allowed you to put them on their “buddy list.” The former lets you connect with more people; the latter gives you more security. A few will let you do both.
Success Story: GenPals Solves a Mystery
Charlene Hazzard and Mary Martha Von Ville McGrath solved a mystery through GenPals. Though the group disappeared when GeoCities died, the example is still a good one of online collaboration.
“When new to the Internet, I found a message on Guenther/Ginther/Gunter/Gunther (from Charlene Hazzard), and when I finally figured out how to write a message, got an answer from her. She had my line into what is now a different country in Europe and had it back two generations from there!” Mary Martha had a town name of Herstom in Germany. Charlene knew that this was the common nickname for Herbitzheim, which is now in France. Charlene had communicated directly with the Herbitzheim (aka Herstom) town historian until he died in 2000. “I had only a nickname for the town of origin, and Charlene explained the real name of the town. By the way, her message was from 1999, and she is the only one who had info from Europe,” said Mary Martha. “What an answer to a 30-year-old prayer. Thank you, God!”
Success Story: Where’s Amos?
I wandered into Uncle Hiram’s Chat Cabins at www.bhocutt.com. I thought it best to familiarize myself with my new “digs” before the following night’s grand opening and my hosting debut. Thinking I’d be alone to try this and that, I was surprised to find three chatters in a deep genealogical discussion. They told me that DearMYRTLE’s newsletter had guided them to this corner of cyberspace. I could tell by their conversation that they were veterans in the field, but I pressed on and asked if there was anything I could do to help them with their research. One chatter stepped forward and presented his brick wall. The ancestor’s name was Amos HURLBUT. He had recently found him in the 1870 census in Iowa and was looking for his parents. The census told him that he was born in New York and was 36 years old. He already knew that Amos and wife Sarah POTTER were married in New York and that Sarah was from Franklin County, New York. He ended by telling me that Marvin HURLBUT was also found in the same part of Iowa as Amos and may be related. Eager to please, especially on my first “unofficial” day, I told him I would look to my resources and see what I could find. I always feel it best to start with the facts, so I pulled up the 1870 census to see what the chatter saw. I easily found Amos in the Iowa 1860 and 1870 census, and I saw the Marvin HURLBUT he was speaking about. But this didn’t get me any closer to Amos’s parents. I thought, hmmm, if Sarah was from Franklin County, New York, maybe Amos was as well. So I decided to search the 1850 census with Soundex for HURLBUTs in that county, but all matches came up empty. Not an Amos to be found. I turned to other facts in the case. Who was this Marvin fella? I decided to search for his name to see what I could find. To my surprise, Iowa cemetery records showed a Marvin HURLBUT born in 1826 in Onondaga County, New York. This seemed to match the age of the Marvin previously found on the census. My next thought: If Marvin was born in 1826, he just might be a head of household in 1850. A search produced a Marvin HERLBUT in Chautauqua County, New York, matching the age and wife of the Marvin I’d been seeking. Marvin seemed to be found, but where’s Amos? Assuming Marvin was related and that families moved in packs, I decided to give a look in 1850 for other HURLBUTs in Clymer, Chautauqua County, New York. And it was there in the index where I found Daniel HERLBUT. When I viewed the census for Daniel, I let out a yell, for there was a son named Amos at home at the age of 17. Perfect match! I could have ended there, but my curiosity took over. I then found Daniel in the same town in the 1840 census. Then I found a Daniel in 1830 in Onondaga County (yes, the same county in which Marvin was born). Although I have a strong feeling, I cannot prove that Amos and Marvin are related or that Marvin is Daniel’s son. But the information I found on Marvin led me to find Amos. It just goes to show you that any piece of information found can be vital to your research.
—GenHostMike
Note
As with any online genealogy topic, search your favorite portal (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Excite, etc.) for “genealogy chat” (or “geneology chat”), and see what comes up!
Reach Out and Touch the World!
To me, what is exciting about all these different programs and formats is that they are all becoming interconnected. Your entry into AIM can be mirrored to your Twitter account; your Twitter tweets can show up on your Facebook page, and on and on.
As Amy Coffin pointed out, you can spend all day shooting questions, links, observations, and files to other genealogists and getting them back. You start typing messages with your buddy in Omaha on Twitter, and then your son at college calls you on Skype, and then your sister-in-law hails you on Google Talk, and suddenly you discover the day has slipped by. All forms of chat are this addictive. Beware!
Wrapping Up
• Internet messaging can take many forms and help you connect with other genealogists.
• Twitter is a form of “microblogging” that can help you keep up to date with the news in genealogy.
• Video chatting programs take instant messaging into audio and video as well as text formats.
• Instant messaging (e.g., AIM, ICQ, and Windows Live) is the most common form of chat and the simplest to use.
• All these forms are becoming more and more connected and usable on many platforms.
• All chat forms can be addictive—handle with care!