Five Days since my "Birthday" on FaceBook

I finally became socially "networkable" and joined Facebook.com on 26 Aug 2008, or thereabouts. On the very next day, just as I was getting comfortable with the site's interface, the powers that be changed the face of FB. I can click on the very top, right, of the site's front page and go "back to the old Facebook". But who wants to go backwards? So, I'll just have to get used to the updated, new look.

I chose Facebook rather than say, MySpace, because over 150 people who write genealogy blogs on the Internet have chosen this particular social network to group together for mutual learning and understanding and to chat as virtual friends. There is also much back-slapping. Indeed, the group calls itself "Genea-bloggers", or "GBers" for short. The group began recently during the first week of July, 2008, and has grown rapidly. One of the GBers, Terry Thornton, and some of his colleagues, have gathered and indexed the blogs of all the other Genea-bloggers and posted it here. I jumped on the list of course (at least I thought I did). And Terry has become one of my FB friends.

Incidentally, in the next few days after joining Facebook, I did a search for my relatively unique surnames of Gailliot, Austel, and Kramp, and lo and behold, came up with several matches. I invited them to become my virtual friends and be participants in my virtual family reunion. It's virtually unbelievable. Though most of these new-found cousins were young and savvy regarding the Internet, I do hope someday to be introduced to their parents and grandparents and discover new history to add to OUR family history and genealogy.

I am looking forward to seeing where the facebook web site takes me- after I learn how to use all of its features. It even has an add-on application called "We're Related". Oh no-o-o-o-o, not another Internet family tree application. Trees, trees, and more trees.

REFS: A bootcamp for genealogy bloggers who have joined Facebook.com. http://fbbootcamp.blogspot.com/