Dear Tiree Descendants, I am overjoyed to report that the grassroots, digital Tiree Family Tree hit 9,800 names today! I think you'll all agree that this number is close enough to our unpublished goal of 10,000 to be called "right on target". The Tiree Family Tree has been the focus of Tiree Interconnections, the genealogy project of the Tiree Gathering 2004. The Tree was intended to outlive the Gathering 2004 and become a permanent legacy of the Gathering. Russ McGillivray, who is building the Tree, has been working diligently on it since last year. When he emailed me today, before leaving home for the Guelph Gathering, he said: "I added 3 gedcoms this morning. We now have 39 submissions, totalling 9,800 names and 1,400 Tiree people". ("Tiree people" means those who were born, married or buried on Tiree.) Many thanks to the 37 contributors (besides Russ and me) who sent in Gedcoms. Russ will publish an updated list of all of you after the Gathering. For those of you who will be at the Gathering tomorrow, Saturday, Russ will unveil the Tree at the Genealogy workshop and be available for you to do searches of it during the afternoon. ____________________________________________________________________ Many thanks, also, to the members of the Tiree Interconnections Team who have been acting as consultants/resource people for Russ and myself. The Team members are: 1. Catriona Hunter, Archivist & Duncan Grant, Genealogist at An Iodhlann, the Tiree Archive, Isle of Tiree, Scotland. http://www.tireearchive.com or http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~iodhlann The Archive offers a Family Research Service at £4.00 sterling per hour. Annual membership is £5.00 sterling. 2. Catriona Smyth, Edinburgh, Scotland. Tiree Research Associate, MacDougalls Genealogy Project. 3. Betty MacKinnon, Tiverton, Ontario, Canada. Tiverton Genealogy Resource Person, South Bruce Genealogy Group. 4. Ian Phillips, Hertfordshire, England. Webmaster, Isle of Mull Genealogy Website. http://www.mullgenealogy.co.uk 5. Simon Sutherland, Nice, France. Author, Islay Interactive Map Program. 6. Gordon Scott, Cornaigmore, Tiree. Editor & Webmaster, Isle of Tiree Online News Website. http://www.isleoftiree.net 7. Keith Dash, Sydney, Australia. Administrator & Editor of Tiree Genealogy Resources http://www.isleoftiree.net ___________________________________________________________________ Russ is happy that the number of descendants in the database now makes the Tree "interesting", to use his phrase. But where it gets even more interesting is if you look at the projections that An Iodhlann, the Tiree Archive, has done for the number of Tiree descendants in the world today. On their website at: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~iodhlann/ they say: ****By our calculations there are some 38,000 people of Tiree descent, in every corner of the world, but most particularly in Canada, America, Australia, New Zealand, Patagonia and mainland Scotland. This is the Tiree "diaspora", a giant family whose members are often unaware of one another.**** If the Archive is correct in their calculations, then Russ has already collected a good slice of the Tiree descendants alive today. Way to go, Russ!! The Tiree Interconnections project has clearly achieved everything that we were hoping it would. The Tiree Family Tree has passed with flying colours through the "feasibility study" stage of its existence. And we will let you know where it will go from here. With much appreciation to everyone who has been part of the project up to this point, Louise MacDougall Networking Liaison Tiree Interconnections The genealogy project of the Tiree Gathering 2004 www.tireegatherin.com