Rootschatting to find where you came from (rootschat.com)

Member Name: LemonSqueezy81

Product:	rootschat.com
Date:	07/05/09 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant way to make friends, and share research (ALL FREE)

Disadvantages: Vast forums are a bit daunting when new

I've been doing family history (genealogy) for over five years now, and it is a hobby which has become increasingly popular since the start of the tv show Who Do You Think You Are? As shown on the BBC.

There are lots of ways to do your family tree online, but a lot are costly and time consuming. Rootschat is a forum which I came upon completely randomly, and which I am very glad I found. By looking for relatives on GenesReunited, another website aimed at those doing genealogy, I came across a lady who was also looking for ancestors of mine. I discovered she is my second cousin and she introduced me to the wonderful Rootschat forum!

My new cousin directed me to the Staffordshire board, which is where our shared ancestors originate from, and we embarked on a little discussion and joint research. Soon another forum member posted, and we found he was also a distant cousin of ours, so we all worked together on putting the pieces of our family puzzle together.

Rootschat can seem quite a vast and complicated forum to the uninitiated, especially if you are not net savvy. However, there are boards for beginners, who aren't sure how to start off their research. There is a common room for general genealogy discussion, and a lighter side board where you can talk about pretty much anything you like! I quite often post on both these parts of the forum. It's nice for having a chat when you get frustrated and stuck with your research.

There are boards for each county within the UK, and also ones for other countries for those who have migrant ancestors. There are other boards for people conducting one name studies, and to discuss ancestors specific occupations and even one for those with travelling or romany ancestry.

Each board has it's own moderator who is there to help, and will move posts to a more appropriate section of the site if deemed necessary. I have found all the members of Rootschat to be really helpful, and am up to a count of at least four distant relatives who I have found via the forum! I even had one lovely lady who isn't connected to me, but read one of my posts.. she kindly passed on the e-mail address of a friend of hers in her local family history society who was researching the name I had posted a topic about.

Another one of the boards which I like to read but haven't posted on yet, is the photo restoration board. There are many kind and talented members there who will restore old photos for you, no matter how damaged the original image they will have a go at making it look as good as possible once you upload it for them to restore. It's great to see what work they can do to peoples old treasured memories.

Also, and most importantly, the Rootschat forum features a private message (PM) facility. Once you have reached three posts, you can send a message to any member. This is really useful if you need to ask a member a specific question, or exchange and research. Myself and my cousin often contact each other in this way.

Summary: A site which continues to grow thanks to its great participants