Several years ago my friend Sue Maxwell introduced me to an interesting family history resource: Genealogy on Facebook. The site takes you to a free PDF by Katherine Willson that you can download. It has links to Facebook groups that deal with many aspects of genealogy, including geographical research, surnames, societies and more. There are even links to Facebook groups that specialize in the individual counties of U.S. states. Some groups are private, so you would have to request permission to join. The purpose of these groups is to share information about the topic of interest and help you get answers to your questions.

At the time I first saw the PDF, it contained links to over 2,000 groups. At the time of this writing there are over 16,000 links to groups in the document, which is 436 pages long. This shows the popularity and reach of Facebook groups, public and private,  in offering community help for family history.

As is the case with most lists, there are occasional links to groups that have strayed away from family history and have gone into other areas. Still, the document represents a great collection of what’s available on Facebook for family history help.

The Family History Guide and Facebook Groups

In The  Family History Guide you’ll find Get Help Goals for each of the U.S. states (Goal 12), as well as for most of the countries in the Countries page. In these Get Help Goals are listed what we think are the most helpful links to Facebook groups for the geographical location.

Here are two examples in The Family History Guide, from California and Denmark:

Have fun exploring Facebook groups for family history, both in The Family History Guide and in Genealogy on Facebook. You may discover new facts, new friends—and new ancestors.