Peter Calver: turning a personal passion into a thriving business
At the age of 47 I sold my software business and, aiming for stability, planned to get a job - which proved a real challenge. Despite completing an MBA two years later, I still found it impossible to get work, and eventually realised that I had no choice but to start a new business. In 2004, at the age of 53, I founded the LostCousins website for people researching their family history, and we now have over 50,000 members.
Prior to all this in 1978 I’d set up one of the first companies to publish software for home computers, and this grew to become one of the UK's leading developers of sports simulations and the world's leading developer of cricket games. As a result, I can say that one of my most prized possessions is a cricket bat which was signed for me by Brian Lara - and perhaps my proudest moment was when I shook hands with Sir Stanley Matthews for the first time.
I’d always been keen on researching my family tree and decided to start the LostCousins site as an easier way of finding living relatives, having tried using numerous other sites myself. Although I’d made some useful contacts it was tedious going back time after time to carry out the same searches and it was also frustrating and time-consuming because so many of the people I linked up with weren't really relatives at all - they just happened to have someone with the same surname in their tree. It took me six months to figure out that the best way to match people up was through the 1881 Census - because anyone in the world can access it free of charge at the FamilySearch site.
'Lost Cousin' is the term we use for any relative with whom you are not currently in contact, either because you lost touch over the years, or because you never knew they existed. They could be 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins, or even more distant. We typically share our great-great-great grandparents with over 500 other people, and if you go back another generation there are literally thousands of cousins!
If you're researching your family history, it makes sense to contact people who share the same ancestors.
They may have inherited photographs or other memorabilia, perhaps even a family Bible in which the line of descent has been recorded. And they will almost certainly have memories that will fill some of the gaps in your own knowledge, some from their own experience, others from stories they heard from their parents and grandparents.
When we first started members could only enter relatives from the British census, but now we've added the US and Canadian censuses too (and they're also available at the free FamilySearch site). We've now also just upgraded the site so that members with ancestors from England or Wales can enter relatives from the 1841 Census as well as 1881 (Scotland 1841 will be added at a later date).
Over the past three years we've introduced thousands of people to their living relatives, sometimes in the next street, sometimes on the other side of the world. Two-third of our members live in the UK, but the rest are from around the globe - we're particularly strong in Australia, the US, and Canada. One-third of all the matches we make involve members who live in different countries, and that's always particularly exciting for the people involved.
For further information contact:
info@lostcousins.com
www.lostcousins.com