Inspiration, when you least expect it

At the recently completed Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), there was a contest held for the best tagline for attendees.  The idea of sharing your experiences via social media was the inspiration.

Guess who the winner was?  

Our current president, Linda Okazaki!  What did she win? She gets to choose the course she wants for SLIG 2017.

Linda Okazaki, photo courtesy of Ron Madson

What was her winning tagline? 

Looking for ancestors, but finding friends #SLIG2016.  Linda says, “It was a spontaneous expression that just came to me.  I’ve made some wonderful friends through the years at SLIG.  Networking is a big component of institute attendance and I’ve developed some amazing long-term relationships!”

Linda's parting thoughts 

“Social media really can be a vehicle for developing personal relationships.  Also, I hope that people new to genealogy realize that there’s more to this pursuit than just finding ancestors.”

Congratulations to Linda Harms Okazaki!

Copyright © 2016 by California Genealogical Society

The California Genealogical Society on Pinterest

My daughter introduced me to Pinterest late last year and my immediate reaction was a negative "Oh no, not another social networking site." I finally did take a look but I didn't see how Pinterest would be of value to the society and I felt we had already had a good mix of social media presence with Facebook, Twitter and Yelp.

Last week I took another look after noticing how many non-profits and genealogists had taken the plunge. I set up a page and some boards and did a little experimenting.

It's important that a social networking site provide unique value before it becomes part of our messaging and Pinterest provides a new service I've been thinking about for quite awhile. Every month we run a member-submitted ancestor photograph in the eNews and I've been wanting to create an online repository of the photos with links back to the archived newsletter for easy access to the original story. Our Pinterest "California Ancestors" board is exactly the solution I've been looking for.

Not all the photos have been pinned yet but I think it looks great already. Please take a look and let me know what you think!


Copyright © 2012 by Kathryn M. Doyle, California Genealogical Society and Library