Pinning Genealogy

Imagine a gigantic bulletin board, filled only with scraps of ideas about how to approach the topic of genealogy.

Now, imagine that bulletin board transformed from an analog cork board to a digital version on your computer.

Can you say Pinterest?

I’ve spent a week’s posts on questions prompting you to dive into the social media world. For some of those posts, I was right there alongside you, swimming in those social media waters. I’ve jumped in, feet first, when it came to Twitter. Same with Facebook. Not so much when it comes to Google Plus. And you can call my Pinterest virtual property a veritable desert island.

Yes, sometimes we can overextend ourselves—or lose the focus required to drive a successful foray into a specific form of social media.

While I don’t necessarily have what it takes to produce a vibrant set of Pinterest boards—hey, I’ve never been a visually oriented person, what can I say?!—let’s take a look at what other genealogy enthusiasts have wrought with this easy-to-use online platform.

Just signing on to Pinterest and doing a search on the term “Genealogy” gives you an idea of the extent of adherents to family history in the Pinterest community. Seems like there is an endless stream of genealogy boards to visit!

Nestled in amongst all those unfamiliar names of fellow genealogy enthusiasts are some you’ll recognize. Some boards are representative of organizations, like the “Genealogy for Allen County” board. Some are readily recognizable, such as the Pinterest account for the digital magazine, The In-Depth Genealogist, and some lesser-known, like the board for Grant Davis’ blog, The Stephen Sherwood Letters. Author Gina Philibert-Ortega has an account, as does blogger Valerie Elkins.

You can find Pinterest accounts for traditional certified genealogists like Michael Hait. Or technology-geared producers like Carolyn Pointer and Kenneth Marks. Some people create Pinterest accounts strictly for their genealogical pursuits, like the business boards of Stephanie Pitcher Fishman—under the title Corn and Cotton—then set aside a separate account for a well-rounded gamut of personal interests under their own name. Jen Baldwin and Terri O’Connell of The In-Depth Genealogist preferred to take that route, as did one of my favorite bloggers, Michelle Taggart, who set aside just one of her Pinterest boards for A Southern Sleuth.

If you are tempted to join such stellar company and begin your own Pinterest adventure—or at least brush up your digital property on their site—there are plenty of online resources to help coach you through the start-up process. One straightforward guide comes, courtesy of the online version of the magazine, Real Simple. Another easy-to-follow demonstration can be found at wikiHow.

While I am not enamored with the search capabilities of Pinterest, it is possible to seek out specific topics on Pins, Boards, and Pinners via their search bar on the top left of each screen. I would love to discover whether any of the graphics, photos, and artwork I’ve found and shared on A Family Tapestry inspired anyone enough to click the “Pin It” button and add it to one of their boards. Other than happening to notice the data as it blips across my blog’s “dashboard” at any random moment, I’ve not yet discovered how to uncover that information via search.

So why, you might ask—considering the huge swaths of unmanageable data and graphics—would a genealogist and a blogger consider getting intertwined in an admittedly addictive website?

The best answer that comes to my mind is from a series of blog posts I found over a year ago. Archivist and writer Melissa Mannon explored how to benefit from a multitude of social media outlets, among them Pinterest. Basically, she found the key to incorporating Pinterest to be the visual outlook it provided, and then the transference of that visual mindset across multiple media. She explored using Pinterest for libraries, museums, and other cultural repositories.

The one show-stopping concept Melissa mentioned, though, came in the wake of her experiments with Pinterest, Twitter, and other social networks. She described how, in seeking to open up dialog among her professional peers, she followed up a post in her own blog with a comment on a discussion group in LinkedIn. In that one comment she wrote, she included a link back to her blog post on that same topic of Pinterest. The result in integrating these varied social approaches? The hits for that one specific post jumped to over one thousand for the day.

I don’t know about you, but the concept of increasing one’s page views to over one thousand in one day speaks volumes to me. While it tempts me to pin the golden halo on one avenue—the medium of Pinterest—I know better than to see it as the result of one sure-fire solution.

I see it more as the result of integrating the outreach potential of many different venues—Pinterest, Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, and other resources we’ve not even discussed here in this series. No matter what your goal—to get the word out about your blog or to attract attention to your research for a specific surname—standing on one street corner with a megaphone will certainly be loud and noisy, but it won’t necessarily get the word out in any way that counts. Blending the use of many well-selected resources to amplify your message is the more likely approach to gain the success you wish for your family history project.


Update, Tuesday, July 9: A timely addition to the collection of Pinterest inspirational stories comes in the form of a blog post today, by Danielle of My Family Historian. I think you'll agree that she adds another helpful perspective to the conversation. Check out her take on Pinterest here.