Tracing Living Relatives?

montgo

Hi,

This is just a general query on how best to trace living relatives, especially in Ireland?

My most successful method so far has been through Facebook. This works really well for the US where names are often very unusual and so easily located. However, in Ireland, trying to locate a Ryan, Murphy, etc, etc. might be impossible.

I have also used US White Pages or similar people search websites to locate people and you will see other people associated/related to the person that you are looking for. I have contacted people by telephone but would prefer to send a message if possible rather than phoning. I've had no success with the the Eircom online phonebook.

So when you can go no further with the available records, talked to all your relatives who might remember, how do you track down the descendants?

L1011

Ancestry.com has found me a sizeable number in the US, and a small amount in Ireland. If you've already got a tree in any software package, sign up for the trial and pull in the GEDCOM to look for tree matches.

Another thing that found one single relative for me was putting some details of ancestors in to Google to see if anyone else has mentioned them online - found a cousin in Scotland posting his father's obituary on a website, account was still active so was able to get in to contact.

Obituaries / death notices in local papers can also be good but that's an expensive road to go down, newspaper archives aren't generally free.

Jellybaby1

MYOB wrote: »

.....Another thing that found one single relative for me was putting some details of ancestors in to Google to see if anyone else has mentioned them online - found a cousin in Scotland posting his father's obituary on a website, account was still active so was able to get in to contact.

Obituaries / death notices in local papers can also be good but that's an expensive road to go down, newspaper archives aren't generally free.

Ditto for these suggestions. Both produced good results for me, one recently deceased who I had never known about, and one live one still kicking!

montgo

Sorry for not thanking you for your responses earlier.

Yes, Google has been a great help to locate the more recent obituaries. They often list the whole family including spouses & children.

I have a tree on Ancestry with lots of matches but unable to contact the tree owners as I don't have a sub. Will consider the free trial but am surprised that nobody has every contacted me even though my email is not hidden.
Thanks again.