Boyd and Ellison explore the nuances of SMS, they provide a historical account of the rise of SNS in earliest years starting in 1995. They identify numerous websites that sought to gain a foothold in the burgeoning social network context that was gaining acceptance on the earliest days of the world wide web. Many of these initial web based social communities failed due to poor marketing strategy, over zealous control by the administrators, and not researching their audience. Research for this media is still being culled through many experts in numerous fields of research. There also has not been enough time for established theoretical basis as of yet, but in time real scholastic data that is currently being gathered will prove more beneficial to rationales being utilized right now.
Before 2001 this site was free and open to anyone who wished to look up names of ancestors or meet descendants with similar family trees. This mantra changed however in subsequent years and went to a subscription model. Yet several other websites became free access ancestry domains during this time period as well and a provided similar discussion as well as posting areas for individuals to connect with others seeking ancestral data.
Individuals partook to these genealogy websites did not post fake identities as it discredited their proof for fitting into an ancestry hierarchy. False or misleading information was of an indirect or unassuming nature, as many message postings were created from verbal memory or old written stories passed down through generations. So sometimes participants provided erroneous information that was not deemed blatant for their misleading ancestry testimony. If applicable, an editing process by other members in a thread topic helped correct misnomers or sought to gain more information. Some individuals knew of each other in ancestry forums from prior correspondence or family reunions, so privacy sometimes did not matter in regards to who they were.
I noticed that frustrations grew on ancestry websites. Individuals looking for surnames such as Smith, Brown, White, often went unanswered because these were common names, so they would re-invigorate their own thread topic again to see if anyone had ancestry information. Sometimes this went on for months. If no one knew information about an individuals query they would not answer in respect to personal boundaries, or not to get anyone’s hopes up.
This is really interesting. I've heard of these sites but have not been a participant. Do they meet all of the criteria that boyd and Ellison have for the definition of an SNS?
ReplyDeleteI think they were a good example of SNS. Participants usually were seeking group inclusion with lost relatives or posting ancestry data in the hopes of connecting to branches of their family tree. Examples of maintaining friendships were numerous when relatives did make the personal connections they sought. Many sought outside assistance from non ancestral members in locations where their ancestors may have lived a long time ago. Individuals who lived hundreds or thousands of miles away seeking county or census documentation, cemetery or grave locations help purely provided in voluntary outcomes. Some just became friends on non-ancestral surname as it was a kinship of sorts. Salutations like "hey Cuz" were very common. I checked on some of my old forums (rootsweb, familysearch) and they appear to be all commercialized, many other forums do not exist anymore.
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