I know the names, births and deaths, places of my parents?

Question

have signed up to ancestry- where do I start looking for other relatives?

Answer 1

Your parents' obituaries, which you'll probably have to get the hard way - by sending a small donation and a SASE to the library in the town they lived inwhen they died - should have their siblings.

If they were born in states for which Ancestry has a birth index, and the birth index shows MMN, use it to hunt for possible siblings.

For instance, if your dad was Mortimer Preiwinkle and his mother was Sandy Beach, you'd leave the first name blank, enter Periwinkle in the surname and Beach in the Mother's Maiden name. How likely the ones you find are to be siblings depends on how common the mother and father's surnames were.

Answer 2

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/s...

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

http://genforum.genealogy.com/

Answer 3

I use www.genesreunited.com

It's quite a good website for finding family, and they send you details when people in your family tree appear in other people's trees.

Maj

Answer 4

Ancestry.co.uk / .com has a search facility.  Type in the names of ancestors (for example, grandparents) and this will bring up huge numbers of names, typically on census returns. You can specify exact names for a more narrow search or choose soundalikes (which broadens the search).  Also, knowing country of origin, birthplace and rough dates of births, deaths & marriages really helps a lot.  If you know the birth dates and places of birth this helps a great deal as it will help you to focus in on genuine ancestors, not just loads of other people with the same name.  For this reason, Its easiest to find the names of your grandparents, plus dates and places of birth, by checking with your parents first. Also, it does help if at least some of your ancestors have unusual or rare names!

Once you have found an ancestor and family on the census returns (in the UK it will list all people living in the house, plus their age, occupation and birth place) you can trace backwards by going to the public records office and getting the birth certificate (which lists both parents) and or marriage certificate (which gives you the maiden name!).

There is also a wealth of material on the LDS website (Church of the Latter Day Saints) which is useful but all transcribed and often full of errors (as opposed to scanned images of originals which are genuine but often difficult to read!).

Most UK counties have local genealogy societies which are also incredibly helpful and supportive.  You can join up, list the names of families you are interested in researching, and see if anyone has any info to share.

It's time consuming, quite expensive detective work!  You will frustratingly encounter lots of false trails. But it is also fun and addictive.