Pinterest to meet distant relatives

Pinterest is not a good way to meet cousins. The chances are very slim.

One way is that you might find a good place to stay in Pinterest, when you go on a genealogical trip and then meet a relative there.

Another way to meet a relative. Pinterest will notify you if someone else likes your pin or repins one of yours. Someone researching in the same area as you might be a relative!

If you meet a relative because of Pinterest, I would love for you to add a comment below or email me. I would be thrilled to add your experience to this post!

Pinterest to share with others

Share with Others

Pinterest is a good place to share genealogical stories and experiences. What you have learned, how you found something, websites you like, etc.

Write a blog post and then pin that post to your Pinterest account. Pinterest is used to share blog posts or websites. It does not hold information like Facebook. 

Share with Family

I would not, however, use Pinterest to share family photos with other family members. There are better websites for that such as Flickr. 

Pinterest to Research Your Family

Research your family
Pinterest is not a site that you will be able to do a lot of research for your family. There are no births, deaths and marriage information on Pinterest. But if you search for the right items, you might find a post with a link to a website with that information. Pin them for future reference.

Family Names
I searched for one of my family names:
     Dowd

The pins that came up had the words "down", "downing" and "don't" in it. Not helpful at all!
So Pinterest isn't good for last names.

Locations
I then searched for a location of my ancestors.
I typed in
     County Galway Ireland

Now I got great pins.
   Places to visit
   Scenic places
   Castles
   Places to stay
   Culture
   Maps!

These pins are great if I am going to go there for a genealogy trip. Places to stay, places to see.
Churches were also listed.That is great for records.

Even if you aren't going there in the next year, pin these. These are pins you might want to pin for future reference.

I add the word map to the previous search.
     County Galway Ireland map

Now I have many different maps. Some of the maps are all of Ireland, some of just County Galway in Ireland and some of County Galway by itself.

I then changed the word map to churches
     County Galway Ireland churches

Not all the churches are useful although very beautiful.

I then changed the word churches to genealogy
    County Galway Ireland genealogy

Now I got lots of great posts of history and old photos.

Pin the posts you like into different boards ready to refer to later when you are ready.

Pinterest: Why Use in Genealogy

Pinterest is a popular Social Media medium.

These posts are for those interested in learning how to use Pinterest in their genealogical research. This is not for those who are professional genealogists or have a genealogy business. That will be a separate post, although this post is a great place to start.

You might already have a Pinterest account and now want to know how to use it for genealogy.
You might have no idea what Pinterest is but think you might want to use it to help your research.

Why Use Pinterest?

• Free
• Many people on there already
• Visual
• Pins are links to websites
• Lots of pins to helps
• Organize pins by categories

Four areas of Social Media

I go through four different ways each Social Media can be used in genealogy.

• Research your family
• Research Helps & Training
• Share info with others
• Meet distant relatives

Click on one of the above areas to learn how to use Pinterest in each of those areas.

Terms
Pins
Each individual item in Pinterest is called a Pin. A pin is a picture with a description with a link

Board
A board is a collection of pins.

Post
Each item in Pinterest with content is called a post.

Repin
If you find a post you really like and want in your boards, then you click Pin, which repins it onto the board you pin.

Like
You can click on the heart to like the post. This does not Repin.

Go through
Clicking to the actual site.