Branch of tree untraceable - using newspaper advertisements?

Crazycatlady39

Hi all,

There's a branch of our family tree (my mum's aunts and uncles) who we have no information on whatsoever. They all emigrated to the States in the early 1900s; unfortunately, renovation work was done on the family home about 25 years ago and the builders threw out a pile of stuff including letters and photos. As my granddad (the only one of the siblings who stayed at home) had passed away at that stage, the link between us and them was broken.

Every search hits a brick wall. I've tried all the sites and although we can find them on the Ellis Island manifests, the trail ends there.

I'm seriously considering placing adverts into some of the more commonly-read papers on the east coast (states of PA, MA, NY, MD) but I don't know if I'm being realistic about this working. Is this too much of a long shot? I have a cousin who is a reporter for one of the local Boston papers, and he's sussing it out a bit for me from his side.

A contact I met through Ancestry.com lives in Maryland and has offered to search for me as a lot of their records have quite strict data control and so are only available to state residents.

Does anyone else know of any sources that I could try? Does anyone know of any reputable geneology companies in the States on that East coast stretch that won't cost an arm and leg? I've possibly found a lead on one but have no way of validating whether it's right or not.

Our tree is huge - I started this back in April and it's been one heck of a ride since - but it's driving me bonkers that this branch is still AWOL. I know it would mean loads to my mum to be able to try and trace them. It's my quest for 2017, and by hook or by crook I'll find them!

Thanks a mill,
ccl

pinkypinky

We have a good sticky for US records, as a starting point.

I presume you've already used Ancestry/Familysearch's American records? The censuses in particular would at least give you a list of possible candidates.

Crazycatlady39

Hi pinkypinky,

Thanks for the post. Yes, I've tried all possible avenues. It really is like they've vanished into thin air.

I'm re-running the searches on FamilySearch as I've ruled out all of the possibilities in Ancestry. This is where I've found the one lead that I have to date. One user on Ancestry has a private tree that might offer a bit of light, but the tree is private and they haven't logged in since March :-(

ccl

MAGZERFLOOD

My family in Galway lost contact with a branch in Australia. I left a message on the Ancestry Message Board and a guy in Australia replied. Try this also. A lot of Americans use Ancestry

Crazycatlady39

Oh thanks Magzerflood, that's a great idea :-)

Coolnabacky1873

It depends on the year and type of form used but one of the questions asked on passenger list forms after 1900 was who the immigrant was going to in the U.S. Typically the name, addresses and relationship of the person to the immigrants is provided? Was any of that information on the passenger lists you found? If so, that gives you a place to focus your research.

Next step would be to consult the next federal census after each person immigrated - 1910, 1920, 1930 or 1940. Compliance rates were quite good by the 20th century so it would be very surprising that they were not enumerated; unless they died or went to Canada or another country.

Be flexible with the name searches and use wildcard searches. For example a name like Rowan could be Rowen, Ruane, etc so a suggestions would be to use R*w*n and variations of that.

You are correct about running up against restrictions on access to records in various U.S. states, but that really would not kick in until the 1950s for a lot of states so it would mostly be death records that could be difficult to access if your ancestors had normal life spans.

If you are happy to post names and dates or a link we'd all be happy to hunt around for them or even the state and we could give you some suggestions.

KildareFan

Unless you know the exact area where they went I would think that advertising now would not be effective. Many US residents don't even read newspapers so you might be wasting your money. People used to advertise for lost friends in the old days before social media - see for example searches in Boston up to the 1920s http://search.ancestry.ie/search/db.aspx?dbid=5060

Some things I've tried using the Ancestry databases is the petitions for naturalisation - your ancestors may have applied for naturalisation and you might find them here http://search.ancestry.ie/search/db.aspx?dbid=1192

The Censuses are great and with persistence you may find your relative, but if they have a common name, be very patient and persistent. Use variants of the name, also, in the search field put place of birth as Ireland and tick exact, so that might reduce the number of possibilities.

And I'd echo the above advice, a targeted request on the Ancestry message boards can prove successful - it helped me a lot so far.