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Ancestor Research Tips

Expand your search
  • Branch out from census and vital records and view different record types (like school directories and church histories). The card catalog is useful for searching specific types of records.
  • Revisit records you've already found, looking for missed details or connections.
  • Whenever possible, view original documents; transcription errors are common with old records.
  • Explore non-internet sources, like local history and genealogy centers, gravesites, books, and family Bibles (many of which contain information on families).
  • When you can’t locate information about someone, try searching for their siblings or other close family members instead. Records that include family members often include the person as well.
  • When looking for living people, try searching social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even LinkedIn can connect you with people who may be otherwise hard to find. 
  • Try connecting with people who have overcome similar research issues to get clues for moving forward.
  • Talk to family members, especially people in older generations. Share the information you have and ask what they know.
  • Keep checking back for information you’ve already tried to find; new records are added to the site daily.


Search alternate spellings
Wild cards are special symbols used in place of unknown letters in a word. They can be used in searches when you don't know an exact spelling.
The two symbols used as wild cards are the asterisk (*) and the question mark (?). An asterisk (*) represents zero to five characters, and a question mark (?) represents one character.
For example, if you didn’t know whether a name were spelled “Nielson” or “Nielsen,” you could do a search for the name using a wild card where the unknown letter goes: “Niels?n.” For more information on searching alternate spellings, see Searching with Wild Cards.

Frequent family tree websites.Build-your-own-family tree websites are sprouting up everywhere. Nearly every online genealogical database site (including Ancestry.com, MyHeritage and Findmypast.com) has a place where you can put your tree, or add to one giant communal tree, such as FamilySearch.org. Some sites, such as Geni and Tribal Pages, are especially for trees; these might match your tree to records from another genealogy site.

Test your DNA.Genetic genealogy is a hot topic, and researchers take DNA tests for any number of reasons. Many are curious to see what those tests will say about their ethnic roots. Someone might be looking for an adopted ancestor’s birth parents, or want to see if he’s related to another family of the same surname. Even if you’re not expressly looking for cousins when you take a DNA test, the ability to find relatives is a benefit not to be overlooked.
First, you’ll want to make sure you take the right test. A Y-DNA test, if you’re male (or if you’re a woman whose brother or father test), can match you with male cousins along paternal lines, such as your brother’s son or your father’s father’s brother’s son. But that leaves out much of your family tree. Autosomal DNA testing, which examines your entire tree along paternal and maternal lines, has the most potential to help you find close and distant cousins. It’s offered by the major genetic genealogy testing companies: Ancestry DNA, Family Tree DNA (called the Family Finder test), MyHeritage and 23andMe.

Genealogists love to share a good family story and talk about hard-to-find ancestors. That makes social media sites great places to find cousins. Facebook and our private genealogy-minded groups; focus on members’ surnames; ancestral cities, states and GEDmatch kit numbers. They’re great for cousin hunting because you share at least one thing in common from the get-go: the topic that brought you there.

You also might uncover a cousin, although it can be hard to tell if someone’s related based on just a name and the limited information you can view if you’re not linked to that person on the site. If you feel confident the person is a relative, you can send a friend request on Facebook. You also can message the person on Facebook, although the message will go into his “Message Requests” folder if you’re not friends. (Let this be a reminder to check your own Message Requests folder in case a cousin has messaged you.) Use the sites’ search boxes to look for surnames and places of interest. Results will show you matching people, pages and groups.
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JOIN the friendliest genealogy group on Facebook ;-)