The wonders of Facebook
 

Have another DNA match born 1945. There is no tree, probably because it's complicated.

Her name is a google-whack, and her Facebook page has proved a mine of information, since from this I have discovered she was adopted as a little girl, emigrated to Canada aged 4, and because she is in contact with her birth family, and is fond of commemorating anniversaries, I have found her birth mother in 1939, and worked out exactly what the connection between us is.

It's a little bit scary that I've been able to link so much back to records, when she has provided quite small pieces at a time.

Of course, had the link been through her birth father, I'd still be fumbling away!

I have done this from time to time.

One in particular, I remember, has a very unusual name - I saw him on TV and thought "he's a DNA match!" - his facebook page has virtually no posts or photos (for very good reasons).

I did not expect much as I looked through his few friends and discovered a person with a similar name to another DNA match and looked at their facebook page - a mine of information from photos of her father to posts by her mother (with the same initials as another DNA match).

But how to link them to my family - I looked into more friends who responded to the family photos and discovered the link and in all was able to place 4 DNA matches into the tree.

I thought I could guess which family member the family had descended from, by the geographical locations, but I was wrong, it was another brother who had about 14 children. And there are a lot of the family who have done DNA tests!

I was able to follow up a lot of the information through BDM indexes and Ancestry electoral rolls and even simple google searches to expand their family circle.

It is a bit scary that it was so easy piece together the family but I guess it was because I had several clues in the DNA matches user names. Without those, I would have not linked together the facebook friends.

I have also used Facebook to discover more about a DNA match.
The name has to be sufficiently unusual to enable this, but it can be an extremely good way of obtaining further information.

I love facebook researching. I've actually spent the last 4-5 days researching and then backing it up with records. My MIL comes from a small town where many are related to each other and if not related are friends.

Family reunions and weddings are also awesome if someone posts and tags people.

Facebook is something both I and a relative use quite often during our lengthy messenger chats. My relative calls it stalking...........I mean researching.

I call it stalking, um, researching too