 GENES
REUNITED WEBSITE
"A recent survey from Genes
Reunited found that more than a third
of Britain's population is interested
in learning more about their family tree." -
Genes Reunited Website
By now we must have all heard of Friends
Reunited. The revolutionary Website that
can get you back in touch with those
old school friends, that you had lost
contact with years ago, but always wandered
what they were up to now.
The idea behind Friends Reunited was
developed back in July 1999 in Steve
and Julie Pankhurst's semi-detached house
in North London. Julie, who was pregnant
at the time and became curious about
what her old school friends were up to.
At the same time her husband, Steve was
looking at original ideas to develop
for the internet. They realised that
the internet was an ideal tool to get
back in touch with old friends.
Friends Reunited was officially born
in July 2000 and by the end of the year
it had 3,000 registered members.
Three years later in 2003 they took
their idea further and launched a sister
site called Genes Reunited. The genealogy
and ancestry site now host over 5.8 million
members and is growing by an amazing
35,000 new registrations a week.
So how does the site work?
As with most websites you first have
to register. This is free of charge and
will allow you to build a family tree
, search for relatives, view message
boards specific to the family name being
researched and receive advice and tips
from the sites 'how to guide'. You can
then choose to upgrade to full membership
for the current annual fee of just £9.95.
This will allow you to use the more enhanced
tools of the site such as being able
to view other people's trees (with their
permission of course), the ability to
contact other members and possible relations,
uploading photos onto your family tree
and posting messages on the message forums.
I first heard of Genes Reunited from
their advert on the television, then
from a friend and for a long time I thought
about joining it. Eventually I found
the time to visit the site and subsequently
signed up. As with Friends Reunited,
the site is specifically designed to
be simple to use and navigate. There
are lots of tips on how to start and
go about building your family tree. There
is access to 280 million official government
records available through Births, Marriages
and Deaths as well as the 1901 Census.
The £9.95 a year subscription,
in my opinion is great value if you compare
it to other genealogy sites (some of
which you need to pay just to get started)
or just the cost of jetting here and
there to research the information you
need.
The research can sometimes get a little
frustrating when you receive a list of
Hot Matches; this is a list of people
who are researching the same names. There
are lots of these and they can take ages
to sort through but I reckon that this
will be something that Genes Reunited
will look at at some point.
I wouldn't hesitate in recommending
this site to anyone. If you are a newcomer
to family history research then this
is the best place to start. It can put
you in touch with distant relatives and
help you create a family tree that can
be constantly updated. A great project
for all!
Some Fun Genealogy Facts
• There are 174 William Shakespeares
and 73 Charles Dickens listed on the
Genes Reunited database.
• Genes Reunited has become so popular,
a relation is added to the site every
second
• There are 444 entries for people born
in 1066
• The most common surname is Smith,
with 360,687 listed
• There are 22 Laurels and 18,622 Hardys
• There are 43 Winston Churchills, 17
Margaret Thatchers and 18 Neville Chamberlains |
