eBusiness Weekly
Kumbirai Tarusarira
AN internationally acclaimed organisational consultant and author, Idowu Koyenikan, once noted; “You can no longer see or identify yourself solely as a member of a tribe, but as a citizen of a nation of one people working towards a common goal.”
Many people often wonder how long and complicated their family trees are, or have been touched by the idea of keeping such information.
ZimTribes, a first of its kind website launched by Misheck Samanyanga (38), tries to shorten the lengthy quiz.
Working with willing members of families with knowledge of their backgrounds, the website tracks family lineages and document them.
Born and bred in Kariba, Samanyanga who is an accountant by profession, developed a passion in discovering the history and background of Zimbabwean people and their tribes.
To consolidate the findings, Samanyanga established a platform that not only imparts information to the present generation, but will go a long way in helping future generations.
In an interview with this publication, Samanyanga said the project is non-profit and a passion project that seeks to
give value to family heritage and lobby for its documentation by more and more people.
“ZimTribes helps you and me identify our lineage by sharing our family’s true lineage information and we get to
know how we are all connected,” he enlightened.
Individuals or groups visit the platform to record and keep track of their family history or lineage information to help current and future generations.
The platform helps Zimbabweans to develop elaborate relationships with fellow countrymen.
“The idea was mooted out of the realisation that most people do not know their family history in detail with very few knowing previous generations beyond their grandfathers.
“Equally important is for people to know our history as a country — where we came from to be where we are today,” said Samanyanga.
ZimTribes is the first website in the country to promote family heritage and relationship search and this was developed to freely help rather than for profit.
Their passion lies in simplifying the way people keep family history.
“In Zimbabwe there are very few people who can count more than five generations going backwards.
“It is hoped this will be a thing of the past, and going forward, the tenth generation from us should know us by name, habits and photos,” he added.
Zimbabwean indigenous people include: Ndebele and Kalanga (2,2 million), Tonga (around 140 000), Shangaan (Tsonga) (around 5 000), Venda (91 400) and Whites less than (29 000). Indigenous groups in Zimbabwe include Tshwa San (2 600) and Doma (1 250).
Shona people are also found in Botswana and southern Mozambique, representing over 80 percent of the population. The Shona tribe is culturally the most dominant tribe in Zimbabwe.
There are six main Zimbabwean language clusters namely: Karanga, Korekore, Zezeru, Manyika, Ndau and Ndebele.
