Sourcing Facebook

[Kim]

I'm wondering how others cite a Facebook page as a source. Obviously with people posting photos, birth announcements, graduations, etc, there is much of interest to genealogists. But how do I cite this? Would you create a separate citation for each individuals Facebook page?

I like to save copies of info I obtain from websites, but I haven't been able to figure out how to print off (or PDF) an entry from a Facebook timeline.

Would anyone be interested in sharing how you handle this?

[mjashby]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

I'm wondering how others cite a Facebook page as a source. Obviously with people posting photos, birth announcements, graduations, etc, there is much of interest to genealogists. But how do I cite this? Would you create a separate citation for each individuals Facebook page?

I like to save copies of info I obtain from websites, but I haven't been able to figure out how to print off (or PDF) an entry from a Facebook timeline.

Would anyone be interested in sharing how you handle this?

Your first question just re-opens the endless debate between "lumpers" and "splitters". In my opinion its an individual choice. - I'm for splitting, attaching images to individual sources and regarding Facebook as a "Repository", albeit a transitory one, but I have nothing against "lumpers". Honest!

On the second question: Just use the 'Grab' Utility, or your Screen Grabber app of choice.

Mervyn

[Kim]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

Your first question just re-opens the endless debate between "lumpers" and "splitters". In my opinion its an individual choice. - I'm for splitting, attaching images to individual sources and regarding Facebook as a "Repository", albeit a transitory one, but I have nothing against "lumpers". Honest!

On the second question: Just use the 'Grab' Utility, or your Screen Grabber app of choice.

Mervyn

In general, I'm a 'splitter', too. I'm just not sure in this case, with the information changing so often. I'm thinking of maybe created a FB source for each individual and (with your suggestion about Grabber) attaching the images to the source as the are posted. I think in general they are dated, so that shouldn't be an issue.

[Jan Powell]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

I'm wondering how others cite a Facebook page as a source. Obviously with people posting photos, birth announcements, graduations, etc, there is much of interest to genealogists. But how do I cite this? Would you create a separate citation for each individuals Facebook page?

I tend to use one source, that being Website with "Facebook" as the title, with the URL as my second line. Any information about whose Facebook page it is goes in the details.

[Blaise A. Darveaux]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

I tend to use one source, that being Website with "Facebook" as the title, with the URL as my second line. Any information about whose Facebook page it is goes in the details.

The problem I see of doing it Jan's way is that screen shots of all the Facebook pages that she uses would pile up in the multimedia of one source. If you used multiple pages from multiple people you would need to title each screenshot very carefully to easily find the one that you need to look up any particular fact.

When you use a separate source for each screenshot, you only have one multimedia item to contend with.

[mjashby]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

The problem I see of doing it Jan's way is that screen shots of all the Facebook pages that she uses would pile up in the multimedia of one source. If you used multiple pages from multiple people you would need to title each screenshot very carefully to easily find the one that you need to look up any particular fact.

When you use a separate source for each screenshot, you only have one multimedia item to contend with.

Exactly. Plus, if you link multiple source images relating to multiple people to a single source; and then link that single source to a fact in one person's record, you are, as a consequence, linking all of those images to that one person. That's a real mouthful of a sentence!

[Susan Freas Rogers]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

The problem I see of doing it Jan's way is that screen shots of all the Facebook pages that she uses would pile up in the multimedia of one source.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see a problem with have multiple images "pile up" in the multimedia of one source. My images are identified by the individual's surname, i.e. filenames for people I've found in the 1880 Census are "McFadden Robert CensusUS1880 Src 30" or "Jones Helen CensusUS1880 Src 30", in which Source 30 is the 1880 Census (generic). I put the citation details in the individual's record, attach the image to the individual, and drag the image into the Multimedia tab of Source 30. On that tab, they are in alphabetical order, since you can either drop them in at the right spot, or drag them into order if they are not already.

If I'm on Robert McFadden's person card and want to see the image of his 1880 Census record, I'm much more likely to go to the Events tab, Census line for 1880, double-click the Source 20 in the Source pane, go to that Sources multi-media tab, then double-click on his filename to open it up. I know that sounds like a lot of work when I can open the Multi-media window next to his person card and the image is there, but you can't see the filenames fully, and the pausing and waiting for each image that looks like a census to tell me if that's the 1880 -- that's too tedious. The lag time waiting for the bubble to give me the filename and path in Multimedia makes me crazy, I'd love it if Leister could improve that. In the meantime, I can click very quickly, so the above gives me the image I want in no time at all.

[Kim]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

I've decided to do a hybrid of 'lumper' and 'splitter' for FB pages.
I am creating one source for each individual's FB page. As I find an 'event' (birth of a child, marriage, divorce, etc) I am using Grabber to capture an image of that bit of data and saving it as SURNAME_Firstname_event.jpg in a 'Facebook Data' folder. The FB source for that person may have multiple images attached but each individual will have his or her own FB source.

[Blaise A. Darveaux]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see a problem with have multiple images "pile up" in the multimedia of one source. My images are identified by the individual's surname, i.e. filenames for people I've found in the 1880 Census are "McFadden Robert CensusUS1880 Src 30" or "Jones Helen CensusUS1880 Src 30", in which Source 30 is the 1880 Census (generic). I put the citation details in the individual's record, attach the image to the individual, and drag the image into the Multimedia tab of Source 30. On that tab, they are in alphabetical order, since you can either drop them in at the right spot, or drag them into order if they are not already.

If I'm on Robert McFadden's person card and want to see the image of his 1880 Census record, I'm much more likely to go to the Events tab, Census line for 1880, double-click the Source 20 in the Source pane, go to that Sources multi-media tab, then double-click on his filename to open it up. I know that sounds like a lot of work when I can open the Multi-media window next to his person card and the image is there, but you can't see the filenames fully, and the pausing and waiting for each image that looks like a census to tell me if that's the 1880 -- that's too tedious. The lag time waiting for the bubble to give me the filename and path in Multimedia makes me crazy, I'd love it if Leister could improve that. In the meantime, I can click very quickly, so the above gives me the image I want in no time at all.

So you are, in essence, doing what I said. You are naming the files very carefully to be able to locate the one that has the data you are looking for. But what do you do if the census image has a family of multiple people, say, a couple and 10 children? Do you put all the peoples' names in the filename? Do you just put the father's or mother's name [maybe, head of household)? I'm curious.

[Susan Freas Rogers]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

But what do you do if the census image has a family of multiple people, say, a couple and 10 children? Do you put all the peoples' names in the filename? Do you just put the father's or mother's name [maybe, head of household)? I'm curious.

Yes, that can get tricky. I tend to name the image something like,
"McFadden Robert wife children CensusUS1880 Src21" where Robert is the HH (head of household) and the 1880 census is my generic Source 21. Then I attach it to each family member who appears on that census. Obviously, that filename is not very precise, since which children are on any given census usually changes every ten years, but given the infrequency of referring back to these files, it works for me.

There were a few times, early on, that I would duplicate the file, then change the person's name to the direct-line child that was also on that census (putting the word "dupe" at the end, to tell me it's a dupe of the same image elsewhere), but since I've kept my files in Dropbox even before this latest thing of syncing it to Reunion Touch, such a practice (of duping) can eat up your available free space on Dropbox. So now, I don't dupe the file for direct-line parent/children, but only if two direct-line people happen to marry each other, then I make a dupe and re-name it for the spouse. I have a lot of very early Dutch ancestors in New Netherland, so I have a few of these instances.

Susan

[Kim]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

So you are, in essence, doing what I said. You are naming the files very carefully to be able to locate the one that has the data you are looking for. But what do you do if the census image has a family of multiple people, say, a couple and 10 children? Do you put all the peoples' names in the filename? Do you just put the father's or mother's name [maybe, head of household)? I'm curious.

I name my source images in a way similar to Susan's, using the head of household. For example, if I found Mary Smith in the 1940 census, the file name would be 1940_SMITH_Mary.jpg. However, I create a new source for every census image (if the family carries over onto a 2nd page, I use the same source and attach both pages). If more than one relevant family is on the same page, I use both names; 1940_SMITH_Mary-JOHNSON_Thomas.jpg. But I also make liberal use of my Spotlight Comments, including names of all family members as well as 'category' and citation info. So my spotlight comment for this would contain...

Mary SMITH - Cathy SMITH - Will SMITH - Thomas JOHNSON - Mary JOHNSON
1940 Census
(I copy the Family Search citation here)

That allows me to do a quick Spotlight search if I ever need to, and provides source information for later. (Often I go on a 'data-binge' and download multiple files to examine later. This way the source information is in the file, so that when I add the data to Reunion, I have everything I need.)

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

I name my census images by place, not persons. This seems to me better to reflect what they truly are - a record of the inhabitants of a given place, arranged street by street.

[theKiwi]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

I name my census images by place, not persons. This seems to me better to reflect what they truly are - a record of the inhabitants of a given place, arranged street by street.

Yep :-)

Roger

[jmayes]

Re: Sourcing Facebook

I'm wondering how others cite a Facebook page as a source. Obviously with people posting photos, birth announcements, graduations, etc, there is much of interest to genealogists. But how do I cite this? Would you create a separate citation for each individuals Facebook page?

I like to save copies of info I obtain from websites, but I haven't been able to figure out how to print off (or PDF) an entry from a Facebook timeline.

Would anyone be interested in sharing how you handle this?

For instant messages done via Facebook, I source them individually.

If it's info in on a profile page, I have a generic source. I then copy the URL to the details.

If it's a Facebook post, I just generic source it.