Locating Relatives

Introduction

In the course of creating a CD-ROM based Family Photo Album, finding photographs, and filling in some branches and leaves on the family tree, Murphy went looking for and located some relatives whom he had never met (or didn't remembered meeting or lost track of).

This document contains three sections: locating living relatives, relatives who have passed, and my experiences.

In the search for any person, living or dead, you must be prepared for a high failure rate. It is just part of the fun. There are a lot of people out there with the same names and finding the ones you want can take a lot of tries.

Locating Living Relatives

The first step would be to ask known relatives for unknown relatives' addresses and phone numbers. Failing that, the search begins.

Internet searches are relatively fast.

There are Internet street and e-mail address searches such as the "Find a Person" links in Netscape's search portal. Each one contains different information and so be sure to use them all, for both street and e-mail addresses. Every portal (Excite, Switchboard, etc.) has people search links. Usually "white page" searches are for people and "yellow page" searches are for businesses. Most search portals have a reverse search also: you supply the phone number or address or e-mail, it gives you the name and address. Several can also list the names and addresses of the neighbors of people you find.

If you are looking for someone who has e-mail, and you know who they have their e-mail with (AOL, AT&T Worldnet, MSN, etc.), go to that service provider's home page and do an e-mail search from there. They probably have the most complete listing of their own subscribers.

When you write to a relative, include your street address, phone numbers, fax number, and especially your e-mail address. Using the United States Postal Service is fine if you want an answer in a week or so. Using e-mail, I can exchange dozens of communications with someone in that same week or so. And I can attach photos (JPG is the most efficient file format), small videos (AVI or MPG files), text (like a family tree listing), etc. As a substitute for sending a lot of photos, I can refer people to this family home page. Since last names of living people have been removed from the family home page (for privacy), I e-mail them a listing of family members to whom they are related.

Relatives Who Have Passed

Since I didn't know if some of my unknown relatives in the United States were alive or dead, one of the places to look for people who have passed is the Social Security Death Index on the Internet. If someone has received Social Security payments and then died, they are on this Internet list. It is searchable using name, birth date, death date, Social Security Number, and/or locations. It is a very powerful search tool. Just searching on a name can give you a large number of hits. If you know a birth or death date, you can quickly find exactly who you are looking for. The Social Security Death Index link that I use (there are several, this one has moved around a little) has the added feature of providing a letter for you to send, requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act. Each request will cost you up to $27.00 (US) and takes about a month to fulfill. They will send you a copy of that person's application for a Social Security Card which includes their birth date, birth place, parents' names, and street address at that time.

Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet is the most comprehensive genealogy Internet link site around. Check it out.

Genealogy libraries can have a significant amount of family history information. The Clayton Library for Genealogical Research and the Tangipahoa Parish Genealogy Library are two such libraries. The Clayton Library has significant census data on microfilm reels, books about many locations, and the volunteers are very helpful. The Tangipahoa Parish Library has the most comprehensive collection of books about Tangipahoa Parish and the people there are very helpful also.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) have accumulated a significant amount of family history information (not just for or about Mormons). They have Family History Centers located around the country. Their web site is a good place to see what they have available and find the locations of the Family History Centers. Each Family History Center has CD-ROM and film archives. You can sit down and search to your heart's content. The volunteers are really helpful and no one tries to convert you. Anything they don't have, they can order from Salt Lake City for a very nominal fee (I paid $3.25 to have them ship the complete immigration and naturalization lists for a major city during 1896 to 1906). Call the Family History Center before you go to check their hours (each are different).

The Mormon Family History Center CD-ROM archives and much of the data that was previously available only in Salt Lake City were put online at their Family Search Internet site in May 1999. I had used their site even before then, when it was in the beta test mode. It is a phenomenal resource. Check it out.

The company genealogy.com (that's their name, no lie) hosts Internet message boards where anyone can post a request for information about their ancestors. You can search on any of hundreds and hundreds of surnames. They can be found at http://genforum.genealogy.com/. I suggest that you look through the messages first before you post. I found that other people were also looking for some of the information that I was looking for and that still other people responded with answers.

A note on census data. U.S. censuses are taken every ten years. The most current U.S. census to be released was 1920. Not all census data and search indexes are available from every genealogy library or Family History Center. It is challenging to locate dead relatives who were children (and lived with their parents) during a census year. Their parents are fairly easy to search for (if the search indexes are available), but only if you know their names and where they lived. It is a gargantuan task to search for children, even if you know where they lived. So the logical thing would be to go to the next census and look for them as adults. It will be 2003 before the 1930 U.S. census will be released. Currently there is no funding for the creation of search indexes.

My Experiences

I was looking for photos of my mother's family before 1930 when she would have been a child. Over Thanksgiving 1998, I was on the phone with niece Christy who was visiting her mom (my sister) Kathy. Christy said that our cousin Claudette, who I had never met, lived in California and might have some early family photos. Christy didn't have Claudette's latest address, but knew she was computer geek, and thought she was on AOL. I did a search on AOL's e-mail look up and bingo, there she was. I sent an e-mail to Claudette and she replied, saying that she had some photos that I would be interested in. Claudette and I have corresponded ever since.

Claudette gave me the address of our cousin Steve, who I had never met. When I sent the letter to him seeing whether he wanted a set of the Family Photo Album CDs, he responded by e-mail. We exchanged more than one e-mail that day. Steve and I have corresponded ever since.

I knew that I had a half brother, but I had never met him. His mother was my dad's first wife. My mother was my dad's third wife. I knew his name, Patrick, and his mother's name, Lucette. So I began a search using the Internet. Netscape's search portal has "Find a Person" links. I used them all, both for street and e-mail addresses. Lucette is a more unique name than Patrick, so I started with Lucette. A search for "Lucette" did not find her. Her address was listed with her husband, who's first name I did not know at the time. So, I looked for Patrick and found one hit for a street address. I sent a letter which was successful in finding him. His wife opened the mail that day. She left a message on my office phone, my home phone, and sent an e-mail. I called and chatted with his wife for a half hour or so. I then called and chatted with Lucette for a half hour or so. This was the first step in getting to know long lost family. While looking for Patrick, I also looked at the Social Security Death Index because I did not know if he was alive. I found one person who might have been who I was looking for and requested information under the Freedom of Information Act which cost me $7.00 (US). The results (not the right person) showed up long after I located Patrick.

I was looking for early photos of the beautiful neighborhood where I grew up. I remembered a neighbor who attended the same high school at the same time I did. She had gotten married and I did not know her married name. So I looked in our 20 year reunion directory and found that she was married to someone with a unique last name. I did an e-mail search and found them. If she had married a Smith or Jones, I would have never found them. So, I sent them an e-mail. They responded back and let me borrow some photos.

My sister and I attended an elementary school that was torn down in the early 1960s. I wanted a photo of it (not really a relative, but brings back memories) for my Family Photo Album. An Internet search found the web page for the school district which listed an e-mail contact. I sent him an e-mail and one day later I had a couple of digital photos.

I was looking for information about my paternal grandfather. I sent a letter to the Social Security Administration requesting information about my father under the Freedom of Information Act. The information showed his father's name as Joseph. Lucette had told me that Joseph's second wife was named Grace. Lucette also told me that my father was raised mostly by his grandmother. So, I did a Social Security Death Index search on Joseph and Grace both in the same state and looked for and found a couple who had the same residence. I sent a letter to the Social Security Administration requesting information about them and found out who my great grandparents were. I also found out my father's grandmother's name.

My father's last wife was Lillian. In early 1999, I found that Lillian was listed on the Social Security Death Index which meant that she had passed away. I was able to find information about Lillian from two sources. I wrote to the cemetery where my father was buried. There was room left next to him in the burial plot for Lillian and I wanted to see if it had been used. Indeed, the reply came back that Lillian had been buried there in 1998. At the same time, I sent a letter to the Social Security Administration requesting information about Lillian under the Freedom of Information Act. Their information showed her maiden name, her parents' names, birthplace, etc.

I was looking for information about my wife's ancestors. I only had information back to her paternal great grandfather. I knew the name of the city in which his children were born from their Social Security Death Index records. A half day search (I should have spent more time) in that city of a church, city hall, the genealogy library, and the courthouse, gave no significant information. I sent a follow-up letter (one of several) to another church in that city and the priest gave my letter to a local genealogy researcher who gave me several leads. The most important lead was that my wife's paternal great grandfather changed his last name when he moved from that city. That was why I had poor research results previously. I was then able to contact distant relatives and others who had old photos and significant information (including when that branch of the family came into the United States).

Retrospect

There are many ways to locate people's genealogy, street addresses, phone number, and e-mail addresses. Locating people is easiest if you haven't lost them in the first place.

Last updated December 25, 2001, by Murphy.