Computer Genealogy Specialists

Finding Your Living Relatives Aunts, Uncles and Cousins

(Article 33)

Wild-Goose Letter Example

Hello. I am researching the genealogy, both ancestors and descendants, of my great-great-grandfather Washington Jackson HAWKINS (born 1825 in Missouri) who married Mary Ann Abigail SHARP (born 1829 in Ohio). Would you please take a look at the attached family group sheet and descendant list. If you know of anyone currently living who might be related to this couple, please contact me at the enclosed e-mail address, mailing address, or phone number. Thank you for your help.

Discussion

Finding that living relative from the other side of the family can be an exciting and genealogically rewarding experience. A close friend of mine set out to find the living relatives of a noteworthy ancestor born in the mid 1800s. The purpose was to invite them to a monument dedication in a small western-states town where the ancestor raised his family. He was amazed to find over 26,000 living descendants from this one common root. In addition to gathering contributions for the monument and having a grand dedicatory ceremony, he opened a dialog among the relatives that resulted in sharing stories, genealogies, pictures, traditions, and accomplishments.

One of the first steps to find living relatives is to network among the relatives you know, asking them who they know. Then talk with the new contacts to ask who they know. This and all other approaches will require organization on your part including correspondence logs, e-mail logs, telephone logs, data sheets, and research logs. You need to remember who you talked to, who to follow-up with, and what they told you.

If you are trying to find someone but do not know their current address, phone number, or e-mail address, try starting at Cyndi's List (cyndislist.com) under the category of Finding People. The links at this site lead to a number of search-engines where this information is available. If you do not find the person you are looking for at one site, try another. Sites vary in how current and complete they are for different geographic locations. Or, go directly to , for current addresses and phone numbers.

If you find that you need to make a lot of long-distant phone calls, you may want to consider using the PC telephone to make those calls ($0.05 to $0.02 per minute in US). All you need is a microphone and speakers or a combination headset that attaches to your PC. Look at or www.pc2call.com, or , Also look to these sites for very low rates for international calls to selected countries as well. The other solution to long-distance phone calls is a cellular phone like Vorizon ($39.95/month, 1 year contract) with country-wide access and unlimited nights and weekends calling. You might want to get an earphone and speaker attachment (about $10) so you can have your hands free to write notes and don't have to hold the phone for hours at a time.

Don't forget your genealogy skills when searching for living relatives. Starting from your known ancestor, you can look for births, marriages and deaths of relatives in the forward direction to the living just as well as in the backward direction to the ancestors. PAF-4 and 5 provide a place to keep Contact Information (mailing name, address, phone, e-mail, personal web-site) on the living relatives, or you can use an address book built into a word processor or e-mail program such as Outlook Express.

Use the Gedcom repositories of compiled genealogies to help in your descendant research. Make sure you look at the person who submitted the genealogy. He or she may be a direct-line descendant. Popular sites with compiled genealogies include:

FamilySearch.org (free - 75 million names on Pedigree Resource File)

Ancestry.com (free for surname searches - 25 million names)

Genealogy.com (free for surname searches - 10 million names)

GenealogyPortal.com (free)

KindredKonnection.com (free for surname index searches - 44 million names to view

(the actual tree requires a subscription $15/month or $100/year)

WorldConnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com (free - 15.7 million names)

RootsWeb.com (free - surname and county searches, immigrant ship passenger lists and more.

Over 150 million names.)

Everton.com (free for limited search)

Geneanet.org (free - 6.5 million names)

GenServ.com ($12/yr +Gedcom, Seniors and Students $6/year - 18.9 million names)

E-mail lists that focus on specific surnames or surnames in a specific state or country can be very helpful. Typically, you can send an e-mail to all the members of the list and have them respond if they identify the connection. Be sure to put your e-mail address in the text of the message as some lists do not disclose the sender's address for privacy reasons.

Go to Cyndi's List (cyndislist.com) and look under the category of Mailing Lists, then Queries and Surnames for a description of how they work and where to find them..

The Roots-Web site has an extensive genealogy mailing list (bulletin boards) that is very popular. You can find it at . Genforum at is another very popular site. The site under the SHARE-tab and Collaboration E-mail Lists is a third site but not as useful as the other two.

It pays to advertise and there are at least three ways to do it free. (1) Submit your genealogy to a Gedcom repository so that others can find a connection and contact you. (2) Start one or more e-mail lists with topics (living ancestors of Washington Jackson Hawkins) that will lead people to contact you. (3) Start your own genealogy web-site using your Internet Service Provider (ISP), or use one of the free services at Rootsweb.org or MyFamily.com.. The latter have the benefit of being fully indexed to help researchers find your material. You can use the Internet output option of PAF to generate the content for your site, then upload it to the desired site by following the directions provided by the ISP or service provider.

The vast resources of Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com and ReunionRegistry.com provide the most powerful tools available anywhere for locating your lost family and friends. Fill out the form on the person you are looking for and on yourself and will contact you about how to get started. This is a people finder service specifically designed for finding living relatives.

Happy Hunting !!!

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33 Finding Your Living Relatives Aunts, Uncles and Cousins