Social media as evidence!

Over at the ProGenealogists blog last month, David Vance commented on how social media worked a century ago in the social columns of local newspapers.

I would be interested in the thoughts of more tech-savvy people on this comparison. (And quite possibly there have been some in the hectic month between his post and this one!)

Vance translated some of the social items into 2012-speak, and it looked to me like the corresponding tweets contained somewhat less genealogical information than their 1912 originals. (Insert your own observation about the 2010 census vs. 1910 census here.)

Meanwhile, here's an example of a top-of-the-line genealogical article that used this kind of source:

Victor S. Dunn, "Social News as a Clue to Ancestry: Hester (nee Rogers) Cunningham of Virginia and West Virginia," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 93 (September 2005): 165-176.

It's available free on line to members of the National Genealogical Society.

Methodology Monday with who visited whom

This month's morsel for the Transitional Genealogists Study Group to read and discuss on line is an article by Victor Dunn from the September 2005 issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly (free download for NGS members): "Social News as a Clue to Ancestry: Hester (nee Rogers) Cunningham of Virginia and West Virginia."

When pretty much all else failed, two little words in an humble and somewhat erroneous unindexed social note in the 29 August 1885 Martinsburg (WV) Independent provided the clue that enabled Dunn to identify Hester's parents: "Miss Mary Kyle, of Winchester, is visiting her sister, Mrs. J. B. Cunningham." As Dunn writes, for genealogist on such a cold trail, no source is too obscure, no record too hard to read, no detail too small to follow up.