Monday, May 4, 2009

Footnote Pages on Facebook - Great idea!

I received this via email today --

"Have you ever thought, "How can I get my family more interested and involved in our family history?" To see how Footnote is using Facebook to bring family and friends together to remember those that meant the most, click here.

"Creating an I Remember page is easy, fun and free. Start now."

I did this and easily connected the Footnote Pages (previously created) to my Facebook Home page and Wall. Here is the Facebook page that appears when you click on the I Remember link:


I already had Footnote Pages on www.Footnote.com for my parents and grandparents. I easily linked to them and created these Facebook Pages for my parents. Here's my father's page:



And my mother's page:


Now I can invite some of my Facebook "Friends" to view and add to these pages. I think that I can invite my friends and family members not on Facebook also - I'm testing this out now.

Doing this creates a Facebook page for each person "I Remember" - so for deceased family members it is "Facebook for Dead Relatives." Whatever is uploaded to Footnote.com for the Footnote Pages is accessible on the Facebook Wall, Info and Photos pages for the remembered person.

I was able to create an "I Remember" page on Facebook for my aunt, Geraldine (Seaver) Remley. I wonder if it will appear on Footnote.com? We'll see!

This appears to be a win-win for everybody involved - Facebook may get more subscribers, Footnote may get more subscribers (but Footnote Pages are Free to create and access), and genealogists may be able to connect with family members more easily on both Footnote and Facebook. Family members, family friends and genealogists can add stories and photographs to the Facebook pages too.

Although not a classical "wiki," the Footnote Pages are one form of a wiki, and the Facebook Pages are the same form of a wiki. It's now possible that each person in our family history can have a Footnote Page and a Facebook Page. It just takes al ot of work to create them one at a time. But the potential for family connections is tremendous, I think.

Now all we need is a GEDCOM upload to both Footnote.com and Facebook for our family tree databases - and have them find a way to automatically create thousands of Facebook and Footnote Pages about our family members.

6 comments:

M. Diane Rogers said...

Although Footnote is really records from the USA and most of my family is from Canada, UK, and Sweden, I'm really tempted to make some 'I Remember' Footnote on Facebook pages for my USian family members and connections, perhaps even for my parents, who were married in the US. I have more relatives on Facebook than anywhere else (including Ancestry.com). Having a family member's historical page right handy on Facebook to see and comment on might get the young ones more interested, who knows!

Mel said...

I think I Remember has potential. It's the easiest to use of the genea apps on Facebook that I've tested. The only problem I had was I had problems trying to access my Footnote account via Facebook. If they work that out, this will be wonderful.

What would be even better is after you add info. in Footnote or I remember and show relationship connections, you could then see a descendants list or family tree view showing all the pages connection.

Chris said...

This is a neat idea but how does anybody find them.

You have to be a Facebook member to access facebook people. I also did a search for Frederick Seaver on the facebook search but it didn't come up.

So it seems to me that the only people who would know about it is people who are already your friends that you tell.

Am I missing something?

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

The "I Remember" function sounds like a really great thing. I'm going to try it out. I'm pretty new to Facebook, but am already seeing the enormous advantages it has over sites such as MySpace and Twitter.

Stephanie at the Irish Genealogical Research blog

Earline Hines Bradt said...

Randy, I made pages for my mom and dad yesterday. I found that when I edited the page, it takes me to the Footnote site for editing. I also found that the Facebook search doesn't show my pages.