RootsChat is a free online

genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...

forum for researching family history through collaboration. The countries include research in United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA and South Africa. It was launched by Trystan Davies and Sarah Davies on 31 December 2003.Sam Burso
''New website where genes detectives take on other people's past''
Western Mail, 16 June 2005. Retrieved 2011-11-14. 18 months after its launch its membership was 16,000 and it was gaining 140 new members per day,.Rob Liddl
''The kinship of strangers''
BBC News, 13 June 2005. Retrieved 2011-11-14. Members ask questions and exchange information using a number of online forums.

Membership

As of April 2014 there are now over 200,000 members with over 4.5 million postings covering over 588,000 topics. RootsChat uses volunteer

forum moderator An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least tempora ...

s in an effort to keep a friendly atmosphere and welcome new visitors. Members have created various games combining the resources available to them, and their passion for genealogy. These include Censuswhacking, whereby people look through the English census indexes for a unique first name, surname or occupation; and a monthly challenge with an aim of discovering as much as possible about a randomly selected person. At irregular intervals "Meets" are organised, where RootsChat members can meet and get to know each other face to face.

Website Organisation

The message posting area of the site is organised into various boards, some grouped together. As well as generic beginner and "common room" boards,

countries A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state (polity), state, nation, or other polity, political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, so ...

and

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

and

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

Counties all have their own boards to allow people researching in the same areas to communicate and share knowledge. There is a strong ethos of sharing resources, with members frequently looking up

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...

and

parish record A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms (together with the dates and names of the parents), m ...

s for each other. In addition to these boards there are special Cornish,

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, an ...

and

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

boards for postings in each respective language. There are also several very active "Special Interest" boards, including * ''Photograph Restoration & Dating'' board to help date and restore damaged family pictures * ''Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition'' Reading and understanding of old handwriting * ''Technical Help'' board providing assistance with hardware and family-history software * ''Armed Forces'' WW1 and WW2 * ''Occupation Interest'' for people interested in the history of a particular occupation * ''Travelling People'' for topics about Ancestors who travelled around the Country including Romanies, gypsies and Circus Travellers. * ''One Name Studies'' Research and discussion of one single surname. * ''Heraldry Crests and Coats of Arms'' Questions on Coats of Arms Answered * ''Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing'' how to interpret DNA Test results Friendship bonds created between members have led to the creation of two boards, the "Lighter Side" and "Totally Off Topic" available to members only, and a chatroom for humorous and postings unrelated to family history

RootsChat in the News

In a case reported by the BBC the members of the site were successful in closing a police enquiry dating back over fifty years. In another, through the help of RootsChatters, the relatives of airmen killed in a crash in 1942 were traced and were able to attend the funeral ceremony for the lost airmen. In 2014 the BBC reported about a

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...

woman who found her half-brother in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

, England, after help from Rootschat members.''RootsChatters discover a half Brother for American lady researching her Black Country Family Histor''
''BBC News'', 14 April 2014.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.rootschat.com
West Midlands Police Federation: Genealogists used in police inquiry

Cleator Moor Crack: Photo sparks world wide hunt

Castle Combe Museum Website: Sampler Discovered In New Zealand

British genealogy websites Internet forums Internet properties established in 2003 Companies based in Bury, Greater Manchester