How'd She Do That?! : Sharing on Pinterest

Pinterest.com is a website to create virtual bulletin boards. Imagine having a bulletin board for all your favorite things at the touch of your fingers; one dedicated to things you want for your home, one for the stylish wardrobe you hope to have, and one for your family history. WAIT! Did you read that right? Yep, I use Pinterest for my family history and genealogy. Let me show you the steps to become a genealogy pinner!

First, you will need to create a Pinterest account. It is free and doesn't send you spam mail! Go to www.pinterest.com and create an account using an email address or Facebook.  I chose to use my email address.

Once you have created your account, you will be taken to your home page. Follow the instructions in the captions below to create bulletin boards.

On the picture above, you see I have three boards. One entitled "For my house", another called "Genealogy Goodies", and yet another called "My Family History."

Two ways I "pin" things to the boards

When I come across a great blog post or an article online that I want to remember or share, I "pin it" to my "Genealogy Goodies" board.

Sometimes, a favorite blog post will have a "Pin it" button already embedded on the blog and you just hit the button and wa-la!

Let's say you are LOVING this post. You want to "pin it". You would click here:

A box of several images will pop up and you may choose any one of them.

Once you have chosen an image, you will see another pop-up window and you can then choose which board to pin to.

Now you have pinned this article to your virtual bulletin board and for future reference or to share with your friends!

You can even "pin it" from FamilySearch. FamilySearch's Family Tree now has a "Pin it" icon on pictures that have been uploaded there. If you find a picture that you would like to save on a board, you can click "Pin it" and save it accordingly.

Step 1: You found an ancestor

Step 2:

Step 3: Click "Pin it" at the bottom of the image.

Again, you will be brought to a pop-up window and asked which board you wish to pin to.  You choose the board you want and click "Save".

What do I do when there is no "Pin it" button?

You might wonder how people pin an item when there is no "Pin it" button.  Well, they installed a "Pin it" button to their browser. Here's how to do that.  

First, go to your Pinterest page, then click on the little arrow to the left of your name.

When you click "About", you will be directed to a new screen and you will choose "Browser Button" and follow the instructions. 

When you have finished, you will see the Pinterest icon appear in your toolbar at google chrome.

Now you have the opportunity to pin any and everything!

So, if you are at Ancestry.com and see a picture you want to save, you can do so even though they don't have a "Pin it" button embedded in the site.

Like in the example below, I want to save the middle picture of Thomas Foster to my board.

By clicking on that photo, I am taken to another window.  Here I will be able to "Pin it" by pushing the little Pinterest icon in my toolbar like so:

You will then choose the picture by clicking on it and saving it to the appropriate board just like we did in the other examples.

I know this post was a bit long and there were quite a few steps, but I hope that some of you will take the opportunity to start using Pinterest in your family history and genealogy work.

PS...there is so much more to learn on Pinterest. Creating tags and descriptions, following other pinners, and finding pins that might relate to your research are just a few. But, that is for another post!

Want to learn how Facebook is breaking down brick walls in genealogy? Read about it here: http://mykithnkin.blogspot.com/2015/05/howd-she-do-that-using-facebook-to.html

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