A Year on Facebook: Turning Posts into Family History
If you’re active on Facebook, you’re already collecting family memories every day. This is a key part of creating a Facebook family history. Birthday greetings, Christmas photos, first days of school, new babies, new jobs, even the hard times – it all ends up on your Facebook timeline.
Instead of letting those posts disappear in the feed, you can reuse them: go through the year on Facebook and turn everything into a real chapter in your family history.
This guide offers suggestions on using Facebook for family history and genealogy, saving posts and photos, and turning a year of online life into a lasting written story – with high-quality images.
1. Why Facebook is a modern family diary
In the past, family historians relied on letters, diaries and albums. Today, many families use Facebook instead:
Short updates about everyday lifePhotos from family events and holidays
Reactions to big changes (moving house, illness, retirement)
Comments from relatives that add extra memories
In other words, your Facebook timeline already functions as a family diary. You don’t need to start from scratch – you just need to gather, organise and preserve what’s already there.
2. Decide which year – and whose Facebook story – you’re telling
Before you scroll back through years of posts, decide what you’re actually writing:
What period?A calendar year (January–December)?
A school year?
“The year we moved house”?
“Granddad’s last year at home”?
Whose story?
Your own year on Facebook?
Your household’s?
A specific person’s story (a child, a grandparent)?
The wider family?
This simple decision will guide everything that follows. As you look at posts, you can ask: Does this belong in this particular family history chapter?
3. How to review your year on Facebook step by step
Now you’re ready to walk through the year on Facebook and pick out the material you want to keep.
A. Go back to the start of the year
Open your Facebook profile.
On your timeline, use the year (and month) navigation to jump back to the start of the period you’re interested in.
Slowly scroll forward through the months, watching for posts that tell part of your story.
Look specially for:
Major life events: births, deaths, moves, new jobs, health events
Family gatherings: Christmas, Easter, birthdays, confirmations, holidays
Everyday life: pets, school, hobbies, work routines, funny moments
Reflections: posts where someone sums up the year or shares what they’ve learned
B. Capture the important posts
When you find a useful post:
Copy the text into a document (Word, Google Docs, genealogy software).
Note the date.
If there are comments from family members that add extra detail (“Do you remember when…?”), copy those too.
You are not just collecting “status updates” – you are collecting raw material for a family history chapter.
4. Save Facebook posts and photos outside Facebook
For long-term family history, you don’t want everything to live only on Facebook. Accounts can be lost, posts deleted, and platforms change.
For each important post, create a record outside of Facebook:
Paste the post text into your document.
Add the date and a short note about why it’s important (“first day in the new house,” “last Christmas with Grandma,” etc.).
Mark which posts have photos you want to include in your family history chapter.
Later, you’ll combine these posts and notes into a continuous story.
5. Sort your Facebook memories into themes
Once you’ve collected the important posts from your Facebook year, you’ll probably have quite a list. Sorting them into themes makes writing easier and helps SEO by creating clear sections.
Common themes:
Major life events
Moving house
New baby or grandchild
Illness, recovery, retirement
Everyday life
Work and school
Pets and hobbies
Local traditions
Family gatherings
Holiday celebrations
Birthdays and anniversaries
Reunions and confirmations
Reflections and milestones
End-of-year posts
“What I’ve learned this year”
Posts written after a hard event
Use these themes as labels in your notes. They will later become subheadings in your blog post or in your family history book chapter.
6. Turn Facebook posts into a narrative family history chapter
Now it’s time to transform your saved posts into a readable story.
Instead of simply listing post after post, use them as “evidence” inside a continuous narrative.
Example:
Original Facebook post (12 March):
“We finally signed the contract for the new house! Moving in June if all goes well 🎉”In your chapter:
“In early March, after months of searching and worrying about money, we finally signed the contract for a new house. The Facebook post from 12 March captures the moment perfectly: ‘We finally signed the contract for the new house! Moving in June if all goes well.’ Behind that short sentence lay weeks of planning, late-night talks and a lot of coffee.”
You can:
Quote short parts of key posts.
Add context that never made it online.
Connect separate posts into a smoother story (“Two months later, another post shows the living room full of moving boxes…”).
This is where Facebook family memories turn into real family history.
7. Use original photos – not Facebook’s reduced versions
This point is crucial if you plan to print anything or keep a long-term archive.
When you upload a photo to Facebook, the platform normally reduces the quality of the image. It compresses and resizes it so it loads faster online. That’s fine for scrolling on a PC or phone – but not ideal for printing in a family book or preserving for future generations.
So if you want a photo in your family history:
Always use the original photo file, not the Facebook version.
Go back to the camera, phone or computer the picture came from.
Copy or export the full-size image into a project folder (for example:
Family_History\2024_Chapter\Photos\).
If someone else posted the picture, send them a polite request:
“I’m putting together a little family history chapter about last year. Would you be willing to send me the original version of that birthday photo you posted? Facebook lowers the quality, and I’d love the full-size picture for printing.”
Remember: Facebook tends to reduce photo quality when you post images. For genealogy and family history, the original file is what you want to preserve. Here is an article published on this blog talking about scanning photos and documents.
8. Add names, dates and places to your Facebook memories
Old photos without labels are a headache for every family historian. While you’re working with your Facebook year, fix that problem now.
For each important post and photo in your chapter, try to include:
Who is in the picture or mentioned in the post.
Where the event took place (town, farm, neighbourhood, church, etc.).
When it happened (exact date if you know it).
Facebook shows the date the post was published, but remember that people often post later than the actual event. If you know the real event date, use that in your text and captions.
Example caption for your chapter:
“Granddad’s 80th birthday, 5 July 2023, at the family cabin by the lake near Åndalsnes. From left to right: …”
These details make your Facebook-based family history much more valuable for future generations.
9. Respect privacy when using Facebook posts in family history
Facebook can feel informal – like talking around the kitchen table – but a printed family history or a public blog post is more permanent.
If you plan to:
Print the chapter and share it with relatives,
Deposit it in an archive,
Or publish parts of it on a blog or website,
then it’s wise to think about privacy and consent:
Ask before including sensitive posts (illness, conflict, very personal feelings).
Consider changing names or details for public versions.
Be extra careful with material involving children.
A quick message is usually enough:
“I’m writing a family history chapter based on last year’s Facebook posts. Would it be okay if I include your post about Mum’s last week and that photo from the hospital?”
Most people are honoured to be included when they understand the purpose.
10. Make reviewing your year on Facebook a family tradition
You don’t have to write a full book in one go. You can make this a small yearly habit:
At the start of a new year, look back at the previous year on Facebook.
Collect the key posts and original photos.
Write a short chapter (even just a few pages) with headings and captions.
Save it as a document or PDF, print a copy, and back it up.
Over time, these yearly chapters will add up to a rich, detailed family history based on your Facebook memories – something your grandchildren can actually hold in their hands and read, long after social media platforms have changed.
By going through your year on Facebook with a genealogist’s eye – choosing meaningful posts, saving original photos, adding names, dates and places, and respecting privacy – you turn everyday online life into real family history that will last far beyond the newsfeed.
