MADIKERI: A Kodava clan portal, Kodagu Heritage Private Limited, has been named in the India Book of Records for the largest family tree linkage. Established by Kodagu native Kishore Uthappa, the portal was started nearly five years ago and has created family trees of nearly 16,000 Kodava individuals – the largest till date in the country.
“All Kodavas are related to each other and I wanted to create a larger single family of the clan. Collecting data from many elders of the clan and a few other individuals, I created the online portal that now has over 500 subscribers,” said Uthappa, who is now based in Bengaluru.
He added, “When any person from the clan meets for the first time, the first question posed to each other is ‘Which family (Kodava) are you from?’ We then try and connect relationships and end up finding out how each of us is related. This online portal helps derive that connection easily.”
The portal has documented the lineage of some families up to 14 generations since the 16th century. Any subscriber of the portal can enter the details of his/her family and find the relationship with other clan members. “One can even find how they are related to Field Marshal Cariappa or General Thimayya or any other known personality from the community. It helps find one's relatives – irrespective of the generation one belongs to,” he shared.
Many youngsters from the community are joining the portal to study their lineage and it has currently documented the family tree of 15976 people. “We have documented at least one individual from the total 734 clans in the community,” he explained. The portal is still growing and aims to create the largest family tree with more than 5 lakh profiles in the near future.
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