Is there any way of looking up a family tree without knowing other people's birthdates or dob's?

Question

I do not know my grandmother's maiden name o date of birth, or anyone elses in my family that I need to know for a family tree, is there a site I can go to where I can look up my family tree by looking up my name or my sibling's name?

Answer 1

You can only begin with birth, marriage and death certificates.

Your fathers and mother's birth certs. will give their parent's names, from those names you can trace their marriages, get their marriage certs. and they will show their father's names, and so on, it is not really possible to do it without knowing dates.

It is a good idea to buy a book about tracing family history, it will guide you through the various stages, and tell you how to use the various kinds of records.

Answer 2

You can do anything you like in genealogy without knowing certain details. It just means you'll spend a little money scouring the records in a bid to find their births, marriages and deaths. It's helpful if you know roughly WHERE they were born. If your family members have rare names, your search will be much easier.

Once you get further back in your family tree, 99% of researchers don't know anything about the relatives, and half the time, all they have to go on is a name and a county of birth. It just means you have to concentrate in order to get what you're looking for.

I'm assuming you know your grandfather's name at the time of their marriage, so find their marriage record, order the certificate, and it will tell you your GMs maiden name and approximate age. From this you can search for her birth record. Once you have this, her birth certificate will state the names of her parents, and so on.

Answer 3

Don't expect to find your family tree online unless some family member has done it.  Also people working their genealogy  will not post information about living people on any public forum as it is an invasion of privacy and can lead to identity theft.

You might find some of your family lines.  However, information in family trees on ANY website must be viewed only as CLUES not as absolute fact. The info is subscriber submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented.  Even when you see the same info repeatedly by many different subscribers on the same people that is no absolute guarantee it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying.

The people who operate those websites have absolutely no way of knowing whether the info is correct or not.  I saw where one person said you can notify the websites so it can get corrected.  They will just tell you to notify the other subscriber.  They are not going to get involved in determining differences between what various subscribers have submitted.

This is an All English Speaking Board so I am answering as if you are in the U. S.   Birth and marriage certificates will have the woman's maiden name.  Birth and death certificates will have both parents' names including the mother's maiden name.  Now, each state has its own laws about who, when and where a person can obtain vital records on another.  

You start off with yourself and work backwards. Interview family members, particularly senior members. Tape them if they will let you.  It might be they will be confused on some things, but what might seem to be insignificant story telling might turn out to be very significant.  Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificats.  Also, depending on the religious faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation, marriage certificates can be helpful.  Find out if any family has any old family bibles.

Once you do all that you have your foundation.

Go to your public library and find out what all they have in the genealogy section.  They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com which has lots of records and seems to be getting more all the time.

They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public  yet   They have U. K. censuses also.  Still be wary about copying info from family trees without getting supporting documents.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has records on people all over the world, not just Mormons.  You need to call them or visit their free website, FamilySearch.org to find out their hours for the general public. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection.  Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at a norminal fee.  

I have never had them to try and convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell.  I haven't heard of them doing that to anyone else either.

While you are at your library and the Family History Center, you will probably have an excellent opportunity to talk with other researchers.

Sharing experiences and ideas is an important way of leaning.

Answer 4

Does anyone know where she was married?  You can look up her marriage certificate (you might have to pay a small fee of around $10 - $15 dollars) and it will give her maiden name and birth on there.  Or they may have it listed on her death certificate.  If she was born past 1930's she would be listed on the U.S. Census.

Answer 5

Another good place to start is if you live in the county that your grandmother was born, married in...go to the local courthouse and look up your surname (last name). You will probably find a marriage license or birth records of some of your family.  That is where I stated and then went to the computer to see if I could locate anyone else that was working on my family line.  

www.familysearch.org

www.ancestry.com

www.gencircles.con

Answer 6

The only way you will find yourself, siblings, parents, etc in a family tree online is if someone related to you created one. You can go to Ancestry.com and look in family trees to see if any of your names match someone Public tree. Not all trees are Public it is up to the owner of the tree to make it public. Also if the names entered are still living you will not be able to see the information entered. So if I were you I would first search for deceased people you are related to and go from there. Some owners attach photos so you may get lucky and recognize names or photos of your family. Then you can contact the owner of the tree to ask them to send you an invite so you can view all the information.

You can also create a tree for free, send emails to everyone in your family to add photos, information and more family to the new tree. This is what I did and I have almost 392 photos, 32 family members contributing, and 1515 people in my family tree.

Answer 7

Set aside the idea of finding this online, for the moment. Shift your mind to WHICH RECORDS will include this information. Standard genealogy is working from yourself.. always going back, one generation at a time, and most important.. USE RECORDS to find the info. Not what you or someone "knows" (many times, what they "know", turns out to be incorrect).  

Assuming this is your paternal grandmother.. the more recent record is your father. Document your father, using his birth certificate. Not only does it verify his date/ place of birth.. info about his parents (including mom's maiden name) is on there. Assuming grandma is dead.. you need her death certificate. You will use her name at death to find that, but her birth name is reflected by her parent's being included, and her date/place of birth.  If you are in the US and she died in the last approx. 50 yrs, she most likely will be found in the social security death index. That can be used to find the dates.. but not the certificate. You build on one record at a time.

Most people scoff at the beginning, about "why do I need records to prove what I know/ was told??".  The answer is that, from the beginning, you MUST shift from "told" to verified facts. Those records that people tend to see as "proof" are in fact, the records that LEAD to the next ones.

Of course, you don't know all these facts, to start with. That's why you are doing research.. to find the info.  The other mindset that trips people up.. is that you are looking for a family tree. No. Don't look for a family tree. Look for the details and pieces, to CREATE the tree.  People really expect their family to be online.. when in reality, only a fraction of families are posted.  Or, they go out, looking for a surname like the Jones family tree. No.. you are not looking for that.. you want to know the exact Jones that were your grandmother's parents.

It will not all be online. Many valuable records are in court houses (a man's will names his wife and children, as well as verifying that he died there.. intestate/probate files are created when a man dies and leaves no will).

Genealogy has been around LONG before the internet. Once you learn to think about how to find RECORDS.. then you start using the internet for a specific fact. You MUST have an estimated time and place.. because not all places keep the same records in the same place.

Good luck!