Spitting Into the Wind

A British pensioner believes he has produced the world's largest family tree after tracing nearly 10,000 relatives.

Roy Blackmore, 76, has spent the past 28 years and £20,000 ($A41,000) scouring census registers, cemeteries and archives to find the names of 9390 family members. He has been able to trace his relatives back to the Cerdick family in AD500. Included among them are Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror as well as a Wild West cowboy, Civil War soldiers and a former French king.

Mr Blackmore's interest in exploring his heritage stemmed from being an orphan as a child.

I have a couple of Aunties who spend alot of their time tracing family members. I imagine it would be very interesting and genealogy is a fascinating topic, with lots of online resources.