Today, I spent hours in a car heading from Pennsylvania to North Carolina with members of my family as we all converge for my niece's wedding. I've spent a bit of time studying the family history and it provided some great opportunities for discussion.

My mother spoke about relatives, childhood neighbors, and the history of houses. She wondered who was still around and what stories they could tell. She reflected about how much more mobile people are these days and how people don't have the same sense of community they did when she was young.

Of course, living in the world of social media, I thought about the communities that I'm part of. I thought about how my mobility and online connections have led me to have friends around the world.

Yet so much of the online connections are about the here and now. The sense of history is missing, and no I don't think Facebook Timelines does a lot to address it.

I have spent time exploring genealogy online. I haven't used any of the paid sites, but I don't find the sense of close knit community that I do in some of my Facebook communities. Is there the possibility to find or establish some sort of online community, or at least repository of stories about the small family farms clustered along side the Connecticut River, extended families on the edge of the White Mountains, or workers in some old New England mills? Is there the possibility of some sort of Family Book?

In the end, perhaps, it all comes down to the stories. The stories we share on Facebook, the stories we share during long car rides. Some of the stories get saved. Others get lost.