Site Community for

hy did it take so long?

Building a Grassroots Research Directory

This example shows the Florida group page.  Using the tag "cloud" on the right, you can select the topic that most interests you to see the links available.  The size of the font quickly tells you which tags have the most links.  Yes, this is a pretty basic directory at this point, but as more people join this group and add their own links it will increase in value - a grassroots effort. 

My first group experiments are set up for state resources.  Florida and Georgia are my biggest research areas and I'm a native Floridian so I've got the skinny on resources in my area. I don't have to suggest a link be added and then hope someone posts it, I just do it myself.  In the process, I'm adding value for all researchers.  Tagging sites like Diigo give us the opportunity to share our knowledge with those we know - and those we don't.  With little effort on our part, we can build a valuable research network letting everyone participate and benefit from the results.

My sister has been bugging me to scan some of the pictures from when we were kids, enlarge them and print them out for her to frame and hang in her new house.  I'm already trying to scan as many of the old family photos as I can, but I really didn't want to take the time and expense to do all that printing.  I found an elegant alternative at Flickr.  I can upload photos as I scan them and choose whether they are visible to everyone or just to family/friends I select.  My sister can stop by, select photos and order prints in the size and quantity she wants.

Flickr differs from the other sites I checked in that online sharing gets a priority.  Sure they want to make money selling prints and other photo-related gifts, but they are putting a lot of effort into giving folks the opportunity to share their pictures online.  Visitors viewing your photos have the opportunity to add notes and comments about them.

I have a network of "cousins" who are researching the same family lines I am.  I get or send an email note to one or the other when one of us has found something interesting in our research.  In my mind this neither an efficient method of collaboration nor overly useful.  I may have found tidbits that others could use, but because I'm unaware of this I don't forward it on.  On the other hand, it can be very time-consuming to email everybody every time I find something interesting.

With an online family research network taking advantage of social networking tools - like Yahoo! 360 - I can post my successes - and brick walls - on my "page" and they are immediately visible to all my connected cousins through their pages.  A quick scan of the Yahoo! 360 home page tells me what my friends and family have been posting and I can determine if it's worth a followup.