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Every living human being is related to every other. The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 helped us understand that rather staggering statement, and to put it in perspective. Our DNA is 99.9% identical, with all of our three million or so differences residing in that one-tenth of one percent. Every living male carries a shared Y-chromosome inherited from a man—nicknamed "Y-Adam" by scientists—who was born 60,000 to 100,000 years ago. Likewise, there was an even older (120,000 to 200,000 years) "mitochondrial Eve" from whom every living male and female inherited a DNA imprint that only females can pass along.
The DNA evidence has absolutely nothing to do with creationism versus evolution. There were people who lived before, and with, Y-Adam and mitochondrial Eve. Imagine the human gene pool as falling through an hourglass. At some ancient point in time, the hourglass narrowed—the population dwindled; some men had children but no sons, or their sons died without offspring; some women had only sons, or their offspring or grandchildren did not survive—resulting in the genetic success of one distinct man and one distinct woman.
We are all descended from that man and that woman. We are all, quite literally, cousins.
The purpose of RelatedLines.com is to offer a data repository about a small percentage of our billions of cousins. Every person in our database has a documented relationship, whether through birth, marriage, or adoption, to every other. And we seek daily to expand the number of ancestors in our files.
What distinguishes us from other genealogy sites that post family data is that we publish information only after it has been approved by a peer-review board.
The study of genealogy received a huge boost in the '90s with the growth of the Internet. As early as 25 years ago, the number of active genealogists could be counted in the thousands. Now, estimates of the number of people who do at least some casual genealogy research runs as high as 40 million. But with ever-improving, open access to information, serious genealogists came to realize there were volumes of data being uploaded to the Internet that were, frankly, misinformation. The intentions were good, but one person downloaded a GEDCOM they thought looked okay, so he merged it into his own information, then uploaded the result into the World Family Tree or put it on a personal Website. Somebody else found that upload, thought it looked okay, and merged the amalgam into his own data—accurate or not—and posted it back as another new Tree. Things got messy. Really messy. Genealogists who demand verified source data began to ignore online family tree information and, worse, most have stopped posting their data online for fear that it will be viewed as part of the erroneous genealogical jumble.
The Internet is fulfilling its promise of expanding every genealogist's research capabilities, but the downside of propagating corrupted data is that we have lost collaboration with many serious researchers, those whose information about family histories should be the most highly prized.
In our small way, for our connected families, RelatedLines.com seeks to offer an alternative. Each active surname line has a Review Board of three or more people selected because of their skill as "cold-case detectives." They are experienced genealogists who demand solid evidence, and who understand how to evaluate and validate that evidence. They actively research their own lines, but even their new discoveries must pass a vote of the Review Board before the information will be posted to the RelatedLines.com database. We encourage others who are researching a particular line to register and become active participants, able to present suggested changes and additions, with accompanying evidence, to the Review Board. To learn more about registration as a collaborator, please see the information in "Apply to be a Contributor." The general public doesn't need to register to be able to view, search, and print family information from our database; however, we do not allow the wholesale exporting of data that could be merged into an individual genealogy software application, and our collected family information will never be uploaded elsewhere.
The RelatedLines.com information resides in a SQL database, and uses an innovative program called PhpGedView as a front-end application to view and manipulate those data. PhpGedView is open-source software, and we would like to extend our thanks to John Finlay (founder), Roland Dalmulder, Kurt Norgaz, Jans Luder, Dick Kaas, Daniel Kionka, Boudewijn Sjouke, and all the other developers and contributors whose vision and technical skill have afforded the genealogical community the opportunity to take advantage of this important tool.
Thanks for visiting, and happy hunting!
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