How to Find a Family Member You Have Never Met
Tracing your family history ofttimes starts with interviewing immediate family members, delving into their treasure trove of family stories and documents, then moving in concentric hereditary rings outward. Quite often, these accounts bring new information to light – a name, a date, a chore, etc. – all of which acts as breadcrumbs, leading you further into your family heritage
But what do y'all exercise if your path leads you to a seemingly dead end: to a family member that you lot have never heard of and have no idea how to locate? That family fellow member may hold the primal to the adjacent set of clues in your family history. While it may seem like the stop of the road, it doesn't have to exist.
Luckily for you, there are steps you tin can take when figuring out how to find lost relatives. We're sharing vii tips you can use to help you locate family members missing from your family tree.
Tip #1: Identify Your Search Term
While this may seem obvious, it is critical that you lot identify the target of your search and the reasons underlying this enterprise. Information technology is important that you explicitly know the post-obit:
- Who it is y'all desire to locate.
- Your relation to them.
- Whether, to your best noesis, they are dead or living.
- The people nearly likely to know them or know of them.
- What you hope to discover by finding them, i.e., are they the terminus of this expedition, or do they perhaps hold information that helps y'all go back fifty-fifty further?
If they are within one or 2 generations of you, finding them may be much more straightforward thanks to modernistic recordkeeping and data. If they are further removed than that, chances are you will have more searching ahead of you. If searching their proper name didn't piece of work, try misspellings, locations where they lived, and even relatives' names.
Tip #2: Journey before Destination
Although you have an terminate goal in mind, you need to remind yourself that y'all are on a voyage of discovery. Unlocking the secrets to your genealogy is not always a simple A to B linear progression. Keep in mind that there volition likely be many detours, obstacles, hindrances, and backtracks you have to make for every new piece of information you manage to unearth; but that is half the fun of information technology. Think of yourself as a family archeologist advisedly uncovering the bones of your family'south past. Every bit such, there may be times when you hit a snag and realize you lot need to retrace your steps to the previous fork in your genealogical road. That is okay. Comprehend it, enjoy information technology.
Tip #3: Interview Close Family unit and Friends
Equally mentioned, you will want to start with those closest to your bloodline in order to become the most recent and reliable data. If there is a specific relative you want to locate, take the time to interview those near you who could help reveal big swaths of information or even tidbits of their story. Consider interviewing:
- Parents
- Aunts/Uncles
- Grandparents
- Cousins
- Family unit friends who knew them or knew of them
Ask them about the following vital records regarding the person yous are searching for:
- Their date of birth (DOB)
- Their full name/nicknames
- Matrimony date, proper name of spouse
- Their date of expiry
- Their occupation, proper name of the company or companies they worked for
- Their kids, siblings, or parents' names and DOBs
- Whatsoever photos they might have of them
If you lot experience like you need more information, move on to extended family members who might have had closer family relationships with your quarry.
Tip #4: Collect the Information
Write down all of the information you discover and then collect it all into one place. If your family members accept other potential sources of information like scrapbooks, diaries, photo albums, Bibles, letters, nascence certificates, immigration records, etc., exist sure to spend the time digging through these resources. You'd be amazed by the kernels of cognition you lot can observe in such seemingly innocuous records such as the family Bible. Once you take thoroughly exhausted these immediate research options, it's time to outset using your newfound clues.
Tip #five: Enquiry, Research, & Research
One time you have collected all the possible immediate and secondhand sources, you volition desire to apply this research in conjunction with external resources. Newspaper archives are a smashing place to start, especially the local city and town papers. Newspapers preserve the daily lives of our ancestors – from striking the winning domicile run to town politics, and everything in betwixt.
- Newspapers
- Electoral rolls
- Census records
- Birth records
- Marriage records
- Obituaries
- Social Security Decease Index
If these tools fail to unlock new pertinent information, you tin also try Google and Facebook, peculiarly if your target is someone who is all the same living.
Tip #six: Organize and Analyze the New Data
Your data study should reveal new information that you can apply, not only for this current project, merely for further genealogical research you may want to pursue in the futurity. Be sure to highlight and explicitly country each new inkling you discover. Also, your exploration may open new genealogical roads for you to get downwards another time, so brand a note of those besides. By compiling, categorizing, and analyzing your new information, you lot not only help your time to come self, simply other family members who may want to collaborate or take up the mantle of family historian at some subsequently betoken.
Tip # seven: If at Showtime You Don't Succeed…
Perseverance is incredibly important when it comes to finding long-lost family members you take never met. It is critical that you don't give up, fifty-fifty if information technology feels similar the trail has gone cold. If your ancestry research did not bring to calorie-free whatsoever immediate answers, and so keep looking for new avenues to follow. Like a Sudoku puzzle or a Crossword, even one new datapoint can unlock others that seemed forever a mystery.
Using GenealogyBank to Find Lost Relatives
Tracking down long-lost relatives tin can be a challenge, but each clue yous find can lead to uncovering new details almost your family history. Genealogy enquiry takes time, effort, and patience. With GenealogyBank on your side, yet, yous have an incredibly powerful annal of relevant documents you can utilise to shed light on your family's history and whereabouts. So, what are you waiting for? Unlock your story and discover your family history today!
Sources
- Trilling, D. Journalist's Resource. Nativity, marriage and death: How to discover vital records.
- National Archives. Resource for Genealogists. Census Records. https://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/census
- National Freedom of Information Coalition. State Liberty of Information Laws. https://www.nfoic.org/coalitions/state-foi-resources/state-freedom-of-information-laws
Source: https://blog.genealogybank.com/7-tips-to-find-long-lost-family-members.html
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