GenealogyWise, or Not?
For the past few days most of the Genealogy community has helped grow a new website, GenealogyWise. Going in to this, I was uncertain if I would like it. Most bloggers have made contact through Facebook, and interact that way. Reading through many posts by other bloggers, it seems we are divided on our thoughts about this new social site.
Personally, I like the fact that it is growing quick, when I subscribed yesterday, there was 1 page of groups. Today there is over 15 pages.
Here are some of the pro’s to the site:
- It allows the user to enter the family names they are searching for. These lists of names are viewable to all your friends on GenealogyWise. I have noticed that a few friends that I do have on Facebook are researching some of the names I am. I would not have known this without the new site.
- Also, it has a place to blog. Now, I know most of us have our own personal blog, but this is a great place to write about the things that are happening in your area that will affect the research of others. Last night, I blogged there about the incident at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, IL.
- It has the same aspect as Facebook, such as groups and other Applications
- You can share your “page” with facebook, Twitter or other social sites
- It is very user-friendly
Some things that I do not like:
- I agree with Dear Myrtle that the emails they send to the subscriber needs to give more information. They should not be looking for how many hits they can get in a day. But how much use they are getting on the site.
- In the all groups category, the need to have it somehow marked if you are a member already
- Bill West said it best in a few posts he made yesterday on Facebook, it is another social site that will need to be checked daily. Will we lose people who move to GenealogyWise and quit Facebook? Will we need to continue to post in duplicate places.
- On Facebook, we reach those who are not interested in genealogy. But, we are planting a seed in those who might be interested late on
I am not sure how all will play out, but like I said GenealogyWise is growing quickly. Hopefully, there will be a happy ending for all those waiting to see how this plays out. For now, I will continue to use both sites.
What are your thoughts?
I just started with Genealogy Wise myself…followed it from Facebook. I created a few groups myself and the only thing that I really dislike is the constant emails when someone updates something in a group that I am a part of. In just under two days I have received over 30 emails from GWise with various updates and only about 4 of them are interesting to me….lol….thankfully I have rules that file all things from that site into a separate folder that I can look at when it’s convenient
You can turn the emails off – just go to the Settings part of your profile.
I am also unsure as to how useful GenealogyWise will be, but I’ve joined, and joined a few groups. I suspect it’s usefulness for linking with other researchers outside the USA will be limited.
Cheers
Carole