Happy 4th Anniversary to Icelandic Roots!
Many thanks to YOU, our volunteers and members, who make Icelandic Roots (IR) better every day. Every one of you plays a very important role in preserving our shared Icelandic Heritage.
Our dedicated and passionate team has volunteered tens of thousands of hours to make our sites and community stronger and unified. We are focused on the mission to preserve, promote, and educate everyone on our shared Icelandic heritage and keep it alive for the next generations. We believe in collaborating to make a site that is not just names and dates. The main volunteers meet weekly via ZOOM for personal interactions and managing the various tasks and member requests, which is so important considering we live in Iceland, Canada, USA, and Australia!
We truly believe that the best results come from collaborating and sharing our knowledge. As of today, we are officially celebrating our 4th Anniversary of being an official 501 (c)(3) charitable organization, though many of our volunteers have dedicated their lives to working on this information.
Our members and followers live in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Mexico, France, Brazil, USA, Canada, and Iceland. People with Icelandic Ancestry live all over the world. Our goal is to track everyone and include them in our shared story and then with money raised from the memberships, to pay it forward. We also help others and pay it forward by giving student exchange (Snorri) scholarships, project and organizational grants, Icelandic Language scholarships, and assisting with heritage projects. With everyone working together, we can make amazing things happen!
The “Cousins Across the Ocean” project has proven time and time again to be our favorite feature with our members. The Technology team is dedicated and professional. They are constantly working on our websites and social media to provide top security, updates, along with tutorials for members. They also help the genealogists and website editors to enter the information, data, and media in a consistent manner along with an easy to use platform.
The database is pure joy and growing by leaps and bounds. We look back at the past year and note the many successful stories. Our volunteers have done extensive work to find elusive ancestors and their disappearing descendants. Every day, we help individuals to discover and preserve their family story. We are so grateful to each person who is strengthening IR - volunteers, members, and supporters.
We have come to a very important realization. Icelandic Roots is not just a genealogy site and our mission is very unique. With social media, cutting edge technology, a team of people working on everything from DNA results, Adoptions, Abandoned Farms, Translations, Histories, Photos, Elusive Ancestors, Documents, Interactive Maps, Biographies, Obituaries, Cemeteries, Special Reports, Emigration, Midwives, Clergy, Cemeteries, Timeline, and Interesting People, Genealogy, and much more. Our comprehensive site provides volunteers a place to preserve their lifelong work, a place for our members to truly discover their Icelandic story, and one location to preserve these documents and stories. But best of all to have a way to “pay it forward” with all the donations back to Icelandic organizations, people, places, education, and projects.
The year ahead is packed with exciting work for us and we are confident that the years ahead will continue to be exciting and much fun. Thanks to everyone for believing in us and helping us to make a better site for you today and for those in the future.
With much thankfulness,
Sunna and the IR Team
