Have you tried out the audio-only app, Clubhouse, yet?
I have been using the app since December 2020 and enjoy it; there are many different types of content to explore. One feature of the app is that they try to make it easy to invite your friends in. The way the invites work (it is invitation only right now), Clubhouse looks at your contacts list and tells you how many friends of each person/phone number in your contacts lists have friends already on Clubhouse. The idea then is that you can help make the case to your friends that they already have friends using the app.
So, do you want to know something interesting?
- 134 people on Clubhouse have the telephone number of one of our family healthcare providers in their contacts list
- 106 people on Clubhouse have my vet’s office number in their contacts list
- 85 people on Clubhouse have my dentist’s office number in their contacts list
- 31 people on Clubhouse have the telephone number of my apartment complex in their contacts list
And I could go on!
So, you see what’s interesting — Clubhouse is identifying networks from the numbers in my own contacts list. Many social media apps can identify networks, hence the term “social networking” but I find it interesting to see this so transparent! But, seeing these networks, also helps inform my knowledge, at a broad scale, of the people around me. I won’t go into it here, but my mind is already thinking of several interesting associations that could be explored based on what I know about my community in terms of composition.
Similarly, learning more about the networks of our family members gives us clues too. You may be familiar with the concept of “Friends, Associates, and Neighbors” which is often referred to by the acronym F.A.N. and colloquially called the “FAN Club”. Coined by Elizabeth Shown Mills, family history research involving your “FAN Club” gives you context to help you learn more about your own family. For, as you trace an acquaintance of the person you are researching, you may find clues that help you make breakthroughs for your own family members.
If you are not using FAN Club research principles, you have a ripe opportunity to open your world of genealogy research!
My friend, Julie Cahill Tarr, who specializes in research strategies designed to get you into action, talks about FAN Club principles in her guide, “8 Strategies to Help You Track Down those Elusive Ancestors“.
Go grab her guide and learn more about each of the strategies she describes.
I personally, use several of them and can vouch for how much further I am able to get in my discoveries. Admittedly, I could use even more of these 8 strategies, and my plan is to do just that! I can even listen to Clubhouse while I research 🙂