yarrow Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 What if you only know the name of a parent and the name of one of their parents. Also, the town where they reside. But no birthdate, maiden name of mother, place of birth, anything else. Would it even be possible to find out? Just curious. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 With limited information, you can start looking to see if you can fill in some of the blanks at a website like Ancestry.com. Since others have done much of the work for you, it can be a great way to see if someone else has started the tree already. But, I do know that sometimes there are errors there, so always look for a second way to confirm the data, or look to see if they have documentation to back up the records (more than just a single person's word of mouth) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhunandFonics Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 It really just depends, but it's certainly worth a try. There all kinds of factors at play... is it a big town or small? Did they keep good records? There are just so many variables. My husband has been doing genealogy for 25 years and has found amazing things on just threads of information. He always amazes me with what he can find! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter's Moon Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 It was easy for me to track back my mother's side because I knew last names (including maiden). We had a general idea of location (New England) but no specific birth dates or death dates (other than my grandparents'). My father's side, OTOH, was very hard to track. I know my grandfather's full name and my grandmother's full name (including maiden). My father didn't know his grandmother's maiden name though, and that is where we had to stop. We only know birth/death dates of his parents', but nothing past that. We do know his grandmother lived on a reservation, we just weren't sure if it was located in New York or Connecticut. I think if you were to hire someone, they could work with that. But places like ancestry.com and such, not so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avila Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Maybe. I would probably need more info than you would want to publicly give to really help (and feel free to PM me if you want help), but you do have a starting point to work from and you could research to follow up with it. If you only have the name of your parent, you can look for the birth certificate in the county that you think the parent was born in. The birth certificate would have the name of both of your grandparents and much more starting information. I have found birth certificates with only names by going to the county office and guessing at birth years using the name index. Another way to look it up, if the dates are old enough to have census info released, is to look up the census. You can manually go through the census using the residence and year to find the names and get more info that way too. A lot of this depends on the dates involved (different dates mean different rules and availability of release of information and different types of record-keeping that would be available). But I have gone back to find the geneology of my grandmother with just her parents' names and the state they came from. So I know it is possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yarrow Posted March 30, 2011 Author Share Posted March 30, 2011 The town is a fairly small one but far away from here. I looked briefly at ancestry.com but it requires membership and I wasn't sure if it was worth it since I may not get anywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avila Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 The town is a fairly small one but far away from here. I looked briefly at ancestry.com but it requires membership and I wasn't sure if it was worth it since I may not get anywhere. Ancestry will be more help for older genealogy, at least it was for me. Going (or writing) to the county office that keeps records was much, much more helpful for more recent information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisa in Jax Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 The town is a fairly small one but far away from here. I looked briefly at ancestry.com but it requires membership and I wasn't sure if it was worth it since I may not get anywhere. I have an ancestry membership. If you email me the names, approximate dates and town, I'll see what's there so that you can decide whether it's worth it or not. :) My email address is lkporter91 at gmail dot com. Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indigomama Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 You can also try Ancestry.com for a free trial period. I did, and got some helpful information. Be careful though, I found some distant relatives who had conflicting data on their family trees. Plus I got two nasty messages from other searchers who didn't like the information I had on my tree:confused::confused:. But many of my ancestors aren't on there. For instance, I cannot find any information at all on my paternal grandfather's side. They just don't exist:tongue_smilie: I don't mean to jump to conclusions but the family I have the hardest time tracing are not caucasian. My NA family and Mexican family apparently did not leave records. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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