A Short 2022 Summary & Thanks to You!

Happy New Year - Gleðlilegt nýtt ár,

As 2023 begins, the volunteer team at Icelandic Roots sends greetings and best wishes to all our supporters across the world. We live in Iceland, the United States, Canada, and Australia. We are dedicated and passionate about the important IR mission.

To chronicle 2022, we have compiled a short list of some major IR changes and accomplishments. There are many more ... but you can see from our shortened list the good works that are accomplished through our volunteer teams.

Through the contributions of 29 talented genealogists, we have grown the database in remarkable ways. Each month the genealogists add about 3,000 new people and update another 8,000 (10,611 this month!) records in the database. Here is the statistic page from 9:45 pm Central on Saturday, December 31, 2022.

Other special items: Saga Project, Emigration Team, Abandoned Farms and Mapping, stories and histories, Interesting People, and more. There are special features such as "My Page", "My Cousins", "My Ancestral Map," the powerful Relationship Calculator, and much more.

A few other database stats:

13,181 text obituaries plus 5,000 more in media news clippings

2,875 sources of information

2,498 cemeteries

The IT Team provides us with a brilliant, high-tech environment and ever-improving platforms to store and present our information, keep it safe from cyber attacks, and manage all the technology systems. They maintain complete backups of all this valuable information for your entire family to enjoy today and in the future.

We have 642 Supporting Members and 63 of them are volunteers. All enjoy access to the Icelandic Roots Database, our expert genealogy and IT team, and our many IR Community and Public opportunities.

The image is just a very tiny piece of all the features in the database. It is growing and changing every day thanks to our members and volunteer teams.

We have many social media sites, too!

14,827 people like our Facebook page - up to 50,000 reach and an active Members-Only FB Page

1,917 people follow us on Instagram plus many other Social Media sites

83 Videos on the database and 105 on our YouTube channel

14 Snorri Scholarships in 2022 (47 in the past 9 years)

$140,000 in scholarships and heritage grants in the past 9 years

More 2022 stats:

585 Articles/Blog Posts - 131 this year with our new Writing Team addition!

26 Public Newsletters - sign up HERE

26 Member Newsletters plus special emails with links to Member-Only events

7 Book Club Meetings with Authors

20 Samtal Hours

Our educational webinars, seminars, and live events are always very popular. In 2022, we held:

16 Public Webinars - the recordings are on our YouTube channel

8 Live Events in Canada, Iceland, and the USA (See our Event Calendar)

8 Public Webinars

12 Member Seminars

We "Pay it Forward" with our only fundraising project - The 3rd annual Fitness Challenge, from memberships of our supporting members, and the remarkable work of the IR volunteers. Three are various grants and scholarships - LEARN MORE HERE. Plus almost $25,000 USD was given away in grants and scholarships in 2022!

We thank each of you for working with us to create such a wonderful and fun community. Our heartfelt appreciation to all who have strengthened relationships and kept the connections strong. Thank you for being a part of this journey, for volunteering, donating, collaborating, and for being a supporting member. Thanks for your interactions on social media, and stay tuned for more exciting additions, events, and activities in the future.

We look forward to the new year and the continued growth of the entire IR Community and send our very best wishes for a fabulous New Year.

Happy New Year - Gledilegt nýtt ár.