Famicity Kickstarter: A Private Social Network for Your Family

Join the Famicity Kickstarter Campaign and create your own family “legacy center.” It’s a private, social network designed for extended family members to tie their past, present, and future stories together into one!

Last year at the RootsTech 2016 Innovator Showdown, one of the semi-finalist entries really caught my eye. It was Famicity, a free, private website for families, where you can share pictures, videos, memories and family activities—what founder Guillaume Languereau describes as a “legacy center.” It’s for everyone, not just the few in the family who may be interested in genealogy, even though you can indeed build or import your tree and share it there.

Everyone wants to stay in touch with their family, but it can be difficult to do so on social networks sites that don’t offer the desired level of privacy, or want to take ownership of your precious photos, and other precious information. Famicity is trying to make it easier for you to share your cherished family memories–from the present to the distant past–simply and privately, with all the relatives who helped you create them.

What is Famicity?

Famicity is a social network designed for the collection of family memories, without the feed clogging ads of Facebook! It’s designed to protect, manage, and continue your family’s legacy, no matter where you are in the world. You can share photos, videos, and precious moments with your entire family with privacy and peace of mind.

Famicity is a beautiful private social network where your family can upload and share:

  • Your family tree;
  • old family photos (for free), videos, audio, and documents (requires subscription);
  • new photos (for free) and videos, audio, or documents of the latest family events (requires subscription);
  • and messages and stories.

You can even create sub-groups within your family network so family members can participate as they wish, and sensitive information can be controlled. These groups are also great for sharing daily errands, commitments, and goals. And yes, you can opt to share to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram if you wish.

How does Famicity work?

Every person has a profile. Each person can add pictures, stories, and videos to share their stories and add to the family legacy. But the best part is, it’s all about privacy, so it’s invitation-only for your relatives, with no advertising. It can’t be searched or accessed by the public – just your family.

Each invited person can see and comment on the content that has been shared to each of the profiles. And the site is designed to be easy-to-use for all ages. By creating your family tree on Famicity, you make a map of your family’s history, choose who can see your photos and videos, and only your invited family can comment on them. It’s the perfect tool for those who want to share and enjoy their history with one another, a next-generation family photo album and history book wrapped into one!

Becoming a Famicity Member

The company has been very successful in France where it was launched, and Guillaume Languereau is now working to bring the new English platform to the United States and Canada. I’ve been watching it progress over the past year, and now they’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign to support their U.S. launch. Kickstarter offers genealogists a way to become early adopters of Famicity, and help them reach their “legacy center” goals.

The Kickstarter campaign begins today, January 30, 2017

Update: The Kickstarter campaign has ended.

A Train Ticket and Popular Novel Solved this Adoption Mystery

Genealogy for adoptees can be a difficult journey. A train ticket from 1856 and one of our most popular Genealogy Gems Book Club titles helped one woman solve an adoption family mystery. Here’s her story.

Genealogy for adoptees

Ben Brooksbank [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Adoption Mystery: Solved

I recently read an article that I just had to share! Julia Park Tracey’s two-times great grandfather, William Lozier, was adopted. She wanted to trace his family history. Her only clue was the receipt for a train fare from New York’s Home for the Friendless to Oberlin, Ohio that William had. The ticket cost $7.50 and was dated 1856.

With a little bit of easy math, Julia realized that William would have been a three-year old at the time. Can you imagine? Julia was intrigued by the finding, but didn’t think much more about it until she read Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. This piqued her curiosity about Williams’s story and she started researching. What she found was an astonishing story of family struggling to stay together during the hardships of 19th century life.

Along her research journey, Julia learned that William’s mother was widowed in upstate New York in 1848. Consequently, the woman lost the family farm and needed to give up her two oldest boys to an orphanage. She managed to hold on to her oldest daughter and baby William while she worked as a seamstress. Sadly, she still couldn’t make ends meet and ended up placing her last two children in an orphanage as well.

Julia explains in the article: “Martha was undaunted; she worked and saved, and eventually wrote to ask for her children back. The orphanage did not respond. In those days, a child’s moral and spiritual welfare were tantamount, and a single mother was seen as not fit to parent. Nevertheless, she found her way to her daughter, and at least one of her middle sons, if not both. Martha lived the rest of her life with her married daughter and her grandchildren. She died between 1900 and 1910, [but] she never saw nor heard of what had happened to Will.”

With these new pieces of information, Julia was able to trace the line back through time and generations. She even learned a little more about her unexpected DNA results! I am sure it was very satisfying to finally piece together the story of the old train ticket and William’s family story. Even the smallest clues like the old train ticket can lead to long-forgotten stories that add to our family history tapestry. Genealogy is all about persistence, and much like a detective, the smallest piece of evidence can make all the difference!

More on Genealogy for Adoptees

orphan train Christina Baker Kline genealogy book clubIf you’ve been a Premium member for a while, you’ll recall Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. It was one of our first Genealogy Gems Book Club selections—and based on feedback from you, it’s been one of our most popular choices. If you haven’t listened to Premium episode 121 which includes our interview with Christina, I encourage you to go back and listen. In that conversation, you’ll learn about the history of the orphan train riders in the U.S. and Canada and how the author researched it.

Learn more about the Orphan Train and it’s riders in this post: “Road Trip Anyone? An Orphan Train Museum.

See what else we’ve read by clicking: Genealogy Gems Book Club

 

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