10 years of genealogy on the world wide web

www.winnem.com online since September 1997

In September 2007 our first decennium online is a reality. Genealogy has been on our minds longer than this, but the web gave us a whole new set of tools. The jubilee is celebrated with a new web design.

Sometime in 1975, Steinar's interest for genealogy started, and the same autumn he entered an evening course. Carsten's affection began with a short compendium he found in his parent's bookshelf when he was 19, and up through the 1980s we both collected whatever we found on discettes and in shoe boxes - unaware of each other's interest. Steinar, however, worked with nephew Geirr on the Ravn and Winnem families from sometime in the mid 8os.

Photo: From the left, Chaika, Steinar and Carsten at Lake Lutvann in Oslo on 8th Sept 2007

Then the Web came along. With internet access at work and an environment where to implement it, he converted his work up till then to html pages during some busy weeks at the family summer cottage in August 1997 - and published in September. Hence this jubilee.

The responce was immediate and positive. In the course of a few weeks and months, the first contacts were established with other genealogist "out there". Today, ten years after, Carsten still keeps in touch with several of those early contacts. One result of these early days is SIEC, the genealogical society which has made its very strong impact on this web site.

Above to the right: In June 1998, Carsten's cousin Angelika invited the family to Denmark for a family gathering. A CD was prepared for the occasion, with the genealogy web site as it looked at the time. The first of the images below shows the front page as it looked then.

On 22nd April 1999, Steinar and Geirr launched their joint project, the www.winnem.com site - and from there the road was not far to a closer co-operation. Carsten "closed down" the site which had been placed on his workplace site, and moved at all to winnem.com. Thereafter, all has happened here.

Ill. above and below: Appearance and menus may have changed over the years - but already in 1998 the book cover from John S. C. Abbot's "History of Russia" (Dodd, Mead, and Company, New York 1882) has been in use in a slightly manipulated form: The word 'History' and the R from the original book cover was kept in "History of the Ravn, Burchard and Winnem families" and "History of the Ravn, Berg, Selsbak and Winnem families". With the small difference that has been between the opening pages www.winnem.com and siec.winnem.com, the front page photo of Carsten's grand mother Asbjørg Berg also showed up on that part of the site some years ago.

Some achievements
The site has generated numerous good contacts, both in the genealogy field and elsewhere. A direct consequense of the site is a number of articles published by Carsten in Norsk Slektshistorisk Tidsskrift (The Norwegian Genealocial Magazine) - the first one in 1998, the latest in 2007. Furthermore, the booklet Sweers Islands Unveiled has its origin between people who met online at this site.

We even have family in Australia. There are many Winnems Down Under, and Steinar has been in close contact with Lucinda Anne Simpson (Winnem) in Queensland. She descends in four generations from Hans Jørgen Olsen Winnem who emigrated to Australia in the 1920s. Also on the Jæger side the site has lead to good contacts across the Seas; Al Askevold has contributed with much of what is presented about American Jægers with roots at Voss and in Bergen.

The thing is, we have had so many good contacts one cannot mention them all. You find them all across the site. Many thanks to you all - we had not been able to accomplish this without you! The Internet has proved to be a real Web for us, in all senses of the word. We have stretched out. And we have captured.

Steinar is resposible for DIS-Buskerud and DIS-Troms' web sites, by the way, and Carsten is the editor of Norsk Slektshistorisk Forening's web site. One has to do something beside this site.

To the left: A more open design from September 2007.

New web design and new menus
From 8th September 2007 we have changed both design and menu system. Frames have been replaced with css - or cascading style sheets, and even though the old menus have served us well, our hope is that this new design will appear both lighter, more reader friendly and easier to use.

To all friends online: Thank you for ten good years together. And to you and new readers alike: We look forward to many good years to come.

Oslo, 8th September 2007

Steinar and Carsten