Are your roots in The Isle of Axholme? &copy;

Are your roots in The Isle of Axholme? ©

How we started Home Search Print Login It started when my daughter found just one military record at The National Archives for her great and my grandfather. What to do with that nugget of information? So a spreadsheet looked like a reasonable tool to start building a record of my family tree. But soon after finding the generation breadth limits of several spreadsheets, plus printing and sticky taping them together, it soon became obvious that an investment in a proper genealogy tool would be essential. Welcome to the world of the gedcom and a familiarisation with genealogy speak and a new software language and where the possibilities now existed to share my tree with others online. By opening my tree up to others on popular genealogy social networking sites I was almost immediately contacted by other genealogy fans interested in the same family members that I had just put up!. Except they and others before them had been studying them long before I had even taken an interest, so now I was now quickly discovering roots I never knew existed. It was this people power that started me to wonder how quickly and accurately one could build a tree that could allow others with a similar interest in these families to pool their resources. Within a few generations I had found that I was not just interested in researching my surname line but also all the people that went to make me who I am and who my children are. So my two grandparent surnames translate into four of my children's grandparent surnames which after only one more generation spread into eight surnames at which point five of them still have strong links to our roots location and the link to the area carries on well into the fourteenth century. So even though not everyone of my ancestors came from the same area which is likely the case for most people, I decided to theme my project as "Are your roots in The isle of Axholme?" Now this ambitious collaborative project aims to trace and link people with any connection to The Isle of Axholme, straddling North Lincolnshire, South Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire, England, no matter how distant they now may be. We trace people who have migrated to more than 70 countries including 9,000 England, 521 USA, 481 Australia, 332 Canada and 173 New Zealand locations to name a few. Our website is powered by a custom version of the excellent and popular TNG online genealogy software (see link on our website) that is simple to navigate, easy to use and is packed with great features such as Google Earth mapping to zoom in on addresses across the world. So far over 500 members have added their research to our website which is publicly accessible and can be edited or up or downloaded to by its registered members. In this "Wiki" style, our members help piece together missing links, correct mistakes and fill in gaps with information or pictures. 95% of the 70,000 people in our tree link by blood or marriage, some are "loose" while we search for those elusive links. We track nearly 6,000 unique surnames and have nearly 500 images of people and documents from their lives. You can click on an image to view a slide show for an individual or for all. We can display complex pedigrees (family trees) that include photos or can be documented in full text. Obtaining the right balance of public and private information is important to us so we recommend our members obtain permission to show living persons with birth location and year of birth only. Unlike other websites that promise millions of possible connections, our tree remains focused with a local theme so you have a much better chance of making connections that will mean something to you. We believe that our information should remain free and publicly accessible for more people to run with and continue building and we know of no other resource on the internet to beat it. Our members will be pleased to help start you off and engage your further interest in this addictive subject. Your tree results are posted on our website which allows you to check on its progress minute by minute and join in building it when you want to. Because we are an open site, your family can watch its progress and join in too. We will be pleased to hear from you if you would like to help add to the site or have ideas on how we can further develop and improve. If you feel your family has roots with us then please visit Red1st.com to add or edit our tree. Please feel free to recommend us to family, friends and interested parties. Happy hunting Adrian Oates 1 Nov 2007

Are your roots in The Isle of Axholme? ©