The Power of Social Media

Today I took the Bambino north for an excursion to Tuggerah Library (one of Wyong Council's libraries) where I was greeted by the bubbly Reference Librarian, Michelle Goldsmith and work experience student Sharon (who happens to be one of my Twitter pals).   I was there at the library's invitation to present a workshop on Social Media for Family History.

Michelle and Sharon made me feel most welcome and were very helpful as I set up for the gig. I saw a couple of familiar faces from the Family Historian Interest Group in the room  plus a member of the Ku-ring-gai Historical Society where I am on the Committee; I also met a fellow geneablogger, Janelle, so I felt right at home. The venue was airy, comfortable and the computer and projector worked so things augured well for the talk.

Before I got started I put out a couple of messages on Google+ and  Facebook asking my contacts to say g'day to the assembled group. Very few in the group had any experience of social media so they were most impressed when, within a few minutes, we received greetings from the US and Australia. Kylie Willison of South Australia was first off the mark , thanks Kylie.

Thank you to all of you who sent messages - you provided a great practical example of how social media works - this is more powerful than just showing a series of screenshots. See the messagaes below.

Thanks to the folk at Wyong for inviting me along. I may have bamboozled some of the group but I think most of them went away with some understanding of how social media can be used to enhance their genealogy experience. I only noticed one person nodding off so at least I kept most of them awake and that for me is an indicator of success.

From Facebook

From Google+

Waiting....

Earlybirds at Wyong Library waiting for my talk on Social Media.

Wyong Bound

Wyong, to the north of Sydney, is about an hour's pleasant drive from my home via the F3 Freeway; it is actually more convenient for me to travel there than into Sydney's CBD.

My quest for CGD will be taking me to Wyong this week when I attend The Family Historian Interest Group Meeting at The Wyong Family History Group. As a new user of this program I was thrilled when I found that there was a user group within cooee of my home. The topic for this meeting is The Property Box : Adding Tabs; adding items to a Tab:  I know I will learn something from this event as I am yet to explore many of the features of the wonderful Family Historian program.

On a future jaunt to  Wyong  I will be dispensing CGD when I present a talk as part of the Wyong Library's Family History series. On 26th September at 10:30 am I will be chatting about one of my pet topics Social Media for Family Historians. I'll demonstrate tools that allow family historians to connect with cousins, collaborate on projects, discuss issues, market and promote genealogy services and perform acts of genealogical kindness. When I have details for bookings I will publish them on this blog.


Hopefully I'll meet up with a host of new family history contacts from the Central Coast on my planned outings.