An appeal not to park elderly relatives alone on the sofa this Christmas has gone out from Friends Reunited.
Families are being urged to positively encourage grandparents to reminisce about the 'good old days' after the turkey and mince pies!
The appeal follows new research for the website's family history service Genes Reunited that reveals only 1% of people in Britain can name all eight of their great grandparents. More than a third can't name any of them.
Even more (60.1%) have no idea what any of them did for a living. And a third (33.1%) don't know where any of them lived.
Yet 96 per cent of the people surveyed say that knowing their family tree is 'important' to them.
Steve Pankhurst, founder of Genes Reunited, said: "Please don't park your granny in a corner with a glass of sherry this Christmas. Ask her to help fill in your family tree instead.
"Many of us reach for the TV volume control when our grandparents start to reminisce about the good old days. But given time, I promise, you'll wish you'd paid more attention.
Genes Reunited has become the biggest family history site in the UK . It links different families' histories together in the same way as Friends Reunited connects old school friends.
Anthony Adolph, an expert genealogist who has studied family ancestry for over fifteen years, explained: "Tracing family history is usually a laborious and frustrating process. But if enough people enter what information they know about their families into internet sites, before long all our connections will join up.
"It'll be genealogy's version of turning on the Christmas tree lights."
Last year, thanks to family gatherings, Christmas Day and Boxing Day proved the most popular days of the year for additions to family trees on the Genes Reunited website.
More than 1,800 UK adults between 18 and 66-plus were surveyed in the first week of December to find out how much people know about their eight great grandparents.
The research revealed that:
Adolph commented: "The responses are remarkably consistent throughout the age ranges. People over 65, who you'd think would be more knowledgeable, don't appear to know significantly more than 18 year olds about their respective great grandparents.
"Mind you, there's a case for saying that 18 year olds should know more as their great grandparents would have been around more recently."
To help families start their family trees Genes Reunited has created a printable tree specifically for use over Christmas. It's even more fun than Monopoly and can be downloaded at www.genesreunited.co.uk
Genes Reunited can be found at www.genesreunited.co.uk
For case studies or to receive more information about Genes Reunited please contact Carolynne Bull-Edwards or Victoria Reed on 01883 717468/07932 723866 or email press@friendsreunited.co.uk
Launched in November 2002, Genes Reunited is a sister site of internet phenomenon Friends Reunited. In just under two years it has become the UK 's largest family tree, genealogy and ancestry site, with over 2 million members worldwide. Internet technology has created millions of 'cyber detectives' who are harnessing the web's incredible resources and unlocking the secrets in their family tree. It is free to join and search, with a fee of £7.50 per year to make contact with other members.
Friends Reunited was launched in October 2000 by North London based husband and wife team Julie and Steve Pankhurst so that people could get in contact with their old school friends. A combination of word of mouth and immense media attention has propelled the site to phenomenon status, expanding beyond the school friends proposition to include workplaces, teams/clubs and streets. The site has over 11 million members, representing 42% of the adult internet population in the UK .
Anthony is a freelance professional genealogist and resident genealogist for Genes Reunited. He v was resident genealogical presenter of Channel 4's 'Extraordinary Ancestors' (2000) and Radio 4's 'Meet the Descendants' (2003, 2004) and is currently tracing Philip Schofield and Fern Britton's family trees in a weekly Thursday morning slot on 'This Morning' (ITV). He is author of Collins Tracing Your Family History, which was published in September.