THOUSANDS of people have signed up to see if they have family roots in Cumnock.

Cumnock Connections online family tree is set to exceed 40,000 names of people who have some family connection to Cumnock.

The page has even helped determined woman, Kay McKeekin, has reunited long lost families in Cumnock after becoming ‘obsessed’ with family trees.

Kay, 68, has helped several people find their local roots after being fixated on researching ancestors. Her fascination began a decade ago when she started to inve stigat e her own background Kay had always been desperate for a bigger family after feeling lonely as an only child. But after uncovering her ancestors Kay was stunned to learn of all her many relatives and how they travelled around the UK. She started the Cumnock Connections page in February 2014 with Bobby Grierson of the Cumnock History Group. It started with about 3,000 names taken from both Kay and Bobby’s family trees. It turned out that Bobby is a 3rd cousin of Kay’s husband. Lots of history group members have turned out to be connected to other members either by blood or marriage.

The population in the 18th century was much smaller and people married within their communities, their neighbours, their cousins, friends of the family. The tree is added to on a daily basis with a large team of volunteers adding their own family or any others they come across when researching. The history group is planning a series of five lectures on family history for beginners starting on Wednesday, September 18 at 9.30am in Cumnock to share their expertise at researching Scottish family history online. Please email info@cumnockhistorygroup.org or kmcmeekin@me.com to register your interest and find out more.