Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine is sorry to announce that we will close our online forum on 1 June 2020.
The forum is a popular community for family historians around the world to share their brick walls.
Sadly the platform it runs on no longer meets modern online security standards.
We are planning to upgrade to a more modern and easier to use website in the near future, and it wasn’t financially viable to upgrade the forum at the same moment.
Announcing the closure on the forum, Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine editor Sarah Williams: “Over the years I have been inspired by your dedication and I have learned so much from you all, whether it’s magazine feedback, new websites or creative approaches to genealogical problems.
"Please stay in touch with us via social media or email.
"We have featured many of your success stories in the magazine, but there have been countless acts of kindness over the years which will not be forgotten.”
The forum will no longer be accessible from 1 June, so regular users should make plans now to save any information from the forum they want to keep.
This includes exchanging contact information with fellow family historians and saving any discussion threads containing useful information you want to refer to.
To do this, go onto the thread you want to keep and select the ‘Print view’ option at the top right.
Press Control P or Command P to access the print options.
Scroll down and select Open PDF in Preview.
Then select ‘Save as PDF’ from the drop-down menu in the bottom left.
You will need to repeat this process for each page.
The option to save a Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine forum page as a PDF
Many forum users paid tribute to everything the forum had meant to them.
Narnie said: “I'm just an occasional poster but I often read other queries and responses as it's all part of learning.
"I am very sad to see it go.
'I've had a few of my problems solved by the kindness, generosity and expertise of other members and I know that goes for many others.”
Paulr1949 said: “I feel that regular posters and helpers on here have become virtual friends.”
The forum was founded in 2009. At the time of writing, it boasted 13,010 threads with 65,694 posts from 6240 users.
All Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine readers are welcome to join our Facebook group, where we hope you will be able to connect with fellow family historians and solve your problems.
You can also join the family history communities on RootsChat.
Rosemary Collins is the staff writer of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
