“We inherit from
our ancestors’ gifts so often taken for granted. Each of us contains within
this inheritance of soul. We are links between the ages, containing past and
present expectation, sacred memories and future promise.” – Edward
Sellner
Facebook allows us to connect with our friends
and family, ‘like’ pages that we
are interested in, buy and sell items, and post pictures and statuses
documenting our everyday lives.
But, did you know that Facebook can help you
with genealogy?
Below I’ll list the
various ways that Facebook groups and pages can assist you in finding your
roots.
1.
Genealogy groups
by location
One of the things
that I have had the hardest time with in my own genealogy research is finding
information about my 2nd great-grandparents, Harry and Anna Fedczak,
who immigrated to the United States from Ukraine. I was given a couple of
documents about them, but other than that there was not much information passed
down regarding that side of the family.
One of the
documents that I was given was an immigration document, where Anna Fedczak had
stated the birth places, both for herself and for her husband, Harry. I tried
googling these places and came up with nothing. It seemed that the person
recording the information had misspelled the cities.
After much
searching and no luck, I turned to Facebook. I searched ‘Ukrainian
Genealogy’ and found a group with the same name. I posted
about my genealogical dilemma and many individuals chimed in and helped me to
figure out which cities that Anna was referring to in the immigration document.
There was also an individual, who lived in Ukraine and therefore had access to
archives that I did not. He was able to find the birth record for my 2nd
great-grandfather, Harry Fedczak and he found the passenger list for the ship
that Anna Fedczak traveled on when she immigrated. I was extremely grateful to receive
this information and realized how valuable Facebook groups can be for
genealogy.
Below, I have
listed some worldwide genealogy Facebook groups to check out. Of course, there
are many, many more than what I have listed here. However, this is a starting
point. I will also list statewide genealogy Facebook groups.
Worldwide Genealogy Groups:
Ukrainian
Genealogy FB Group:
Scottish Genealogy FB Group:
Irish Genealogy
FB Group:
German Genealogy
FB Group:
British Isles
Genealogy FB Group:
Polish Genealogy
FB Group:
Eastern Europe
Genealogy Research Community FB Group
Native American
Genealogy FB Group:
France and Mediterranean
Genealogy FB Group:
Caribbean
Genealogy FB Group:
Central Europe
Genealogy Research Community FB Group:
Our African
Genealogy FB Group:
Statewide Genealogy Facebook Groups:
Ohio Genealogy
and History FB Group:
Indiana Genealogy
FB Group:
Kentucky Genealogy
Records FB Group:
2.
Genealogy
Translations
Facebook is also
useful for genealogy translations! For example, if you have a page from a
family bible, an old letter, or other document which is not in your native
language, there are Facebook groups where you are able to upload a picture of
your document and volunteers will translate it into English. This was very
helpful in my research because I was given a document that was written in Latin.
I knew that it was related to my 2nd great-grandmother, Anna Fedczak’s side
of the family, but I did not know what information the document contained. I
uploaded it to the Facebook group and a volunteer translated the document.
Through reading the translation, I was able to discover that Anna has a sister
named Mary, and the document was a baptismal record for her son!
If you have any
records or documents in another language, I highly recommend checking out a
Facebook translation group. Here is one listed below:
Genealogy
Translations FB Group:
3. Cursive and
Genealogy
Countless
genealogical records are handwritten in cursive. This can include census
records, immigration/ship manifests, and many more. The difficult thing about
many documents being written in cursive is that many times names, places and
other words were misspelled. This is especially true with census records. Also
with variations in handwriting, it can be quite difficult to read some of the
records.
If you come
across a record that you have a hard time reading, I would encourage you to
check out a Facebook group, such as Deciphering Genealogy Script (linked
below). You may upload a picture of your record and volunteers will help untangle
the script for your record.
Deciphering
Genealogy Script FB Group:
I hope these
group prove to be helpful in your genealogy research!
No comments:
Post a Comment