In this post I am going to explain how I have been able to break down many brick walls in my family tree. I have broken down many walls through collaboration with fellow researchers and cousins without paying for any of those skip tracing premium websites where you pay way too much money to find addresses, phone numbers, and background checks on people.
Why would you need to locate living people? How could they know more about my family's past?
I am only 20 years old so this comes in handy with me and some younger generations. My youngest 3rd Great Grandfather died in 1935 so there's quite a bit of a gap between me and other researchers who may be older. However, if you're older and have a brick wall with great grandparents or a great great grandparent this could still be very helpful, after all people have been living longer longer!!
Locating people often times occurs out of luck and happenstance. Sometimes getting a little bit of luck and a whole lot of happenstance is just a matter of going to the right places and listening to the right people. For example, I happened upon a conversation with my great Aunt and my grandfather and they were discussing my great grandmother's first cousin. Though my great grandmother has died, she would've been 90 so I wouldn't even have thought of her first cousin being helpful. He happened to live on the other side of the state from me but working on the road was a big step in helping me with meeting with him. I was in his home town working in the cemetery and after I was finished, I went online and found him phone number, gave him a call, introduced myself as his cousins' great grandson and he opened his home to me that very same day.
Finding phone numbers for people is super easy online. Especially for older people who are not aware of their online "google" results. This could be very misused by the wrong people, but with a good moral compass, and harmless intentions, it is a great way to find family. There will be times you'll find people who are cautious, understandably so, but there are also a possibility you might be berated, verbally assaulted, and accused of coming after inheritance (Been there..done that..not fun).
I was finished with headstone installations at the cemetery and excited to head over to meet my great grandmother's cousin. I was so fortunate to meet with him and his wife and so glad they weren't busy that day. Not only did I find more family who is incredibly hospitable but I was able to find out information on some ancestors who I thought were long gone! My newly found cousin is only in his mid 80's and he had been in the air force and stationed in the same town as my great grandmother. Growing up as children, they knew each other quite well but years at separated them. Since they found each other close by, they got together for dinners with their family's (a good memory I was lucky enough to hear being reminisced about by my grandfather and his sister).
I had always wondered about the divorce of my 3rd great grandparents. A mystery I thought was never to be solved had light shed on it. My 3rd Great Grandmother lived with my cousin in his childhood home's attic before she was put in a facility for dementia care. "She was a tough woman to live with" is what his father always said. Though there's two sided to every story, it was quite eye opening just talking to someone who knew her, talked to her, and lived with her.
My cousins wife, in mid conversation, jumped to her feet, ran to a back room down the hallway and came out with these 2 old family photos. An original of my 4th great grandfather and hand done charcoal of my 3rd Great Grandfather. "I want you to have these" she said.
Stunned, I told them I couldn't accept these as I didn't come to meet them in hopes of bringing anything home with me. She said "We knew you didn't come here for stuff, but you're leaving here with stuff anyhow. Our kids aren't interested in these and they don't even know or appreciate who they were. You're welcome to leave them here but they'll just get thrown out after we kick the bucket".
Loaded them up in the truck, got home, hung them on the wall. My 4th great grandfather had 12 children. His kids had a bunch of kids. Now there are probably 600 or more descendants of his and I was lucky enough to get one of his original portraits. Absolutely incredible, and humbling.
Not Every Ancestor has a Living Link but most of them have living heirlooms that are kept by family members with the understanding of the importance of these objects.
I met with a cousin a few months ago before I came to Europe. She is in my parents generation and she too is into genealogy. When we met, I brought a folder full of our mutual ancestor's death certificates and she brought 2 envelopes full of genealogy information my Great Great Grandmother had done with a cousin in Minnesota. I was not aware of these folders and neither was my Genealogist Great Aunt. So, going through these files was very exciting to me and they both unlocked a family mystery that I had been trying to find for about 5 years.
My 4th Great Grandmother was born in Denmark. She came over with her parent's and her sibling when she was 13 and they settled in Minnesota. When she got married and had kids, the family moved West to Dayton, Washington and when the family arrived in 1890 her husband, her brother in law, and her baby daughter die all within 1 month of each other. I had been to her husband, brother in law, and daughter's unmarked grave and I stood there in awe just wondering, HOW?
Death records weren't required until 1906 in Washington state and is had only become a state 4 months before their deaths in 1890. So after going through State vital records, and territory records I thought this was a mystery lost to time.
In my Great Great Grandmother's files, she had family group sheets and in very worn out pencil she wrote next to the death date of my 4th great grandfather "brights disease". Same next to the death date on the baby girl. Mystery solved. An added bonus was a photo copy of a picture of him, never had been seen by me before, and my Great Aunt had seen the picture before but never knew who it was! Another added bonus was where my Great Great Grandmother wrote where she got the information. Family Bible in possession of J Hunt.
I went home, got online, and found my Uncle J Hunt and he is long gone. So, I went online to find his son who I hoped would have the bible, or at least know who had it.
The best way to find living people:
Whitepages.com - This will sometimes give only a phone number, or sometimes only give an address. If you're lucky, you could get both for free but never pay for Whitepages Premium. If you can find the address, that's really all you need. Take the address to google.com and put it in the search bar in between quotes (Exp "insert address"). Sometimes this will give you a result with the home owner's information, or their phone number. If not, find the county the address is in, locate the county's online tax assessor website, search for the address, and it will list the current home owner, tax information which is pointless to us, and often times their active land line number.
I did this with my cousin, gave him a call, introduced myself and asked if he would allow me to view the Bible for genealogy reasons. This was just about a month ago and he said he had to find out who had it, and once he found it, he'd call me back. I am in Europe now so hopefully he will find it and call my aunt, whom he knows. I am hoping this family bible of my 4th Great Grandfather lists his parents. I am sure it does.
A huge bonus, meeting with my cousin. We were both in contact after I had called him asking for the bible and she was just as excited as I was. I had been told when my 4th Great Grandparents came over on the Oregon trail they brought with them a dresser, and a trunk. The dresser was at my Aunt's and the Trunk was given to my great great aunt who has passed away years ago. The cousin I met was the daughter in law of the same great great aunt and so I asked if she had a trunk she got from her mother in law. She had a trunk, but didn't know the history of it. She sent me a photo of it, I forwarded to my aunt who knew the looks of it from her childhood and BAM! Just like that, my cousin realized she had a family treasure without even knowing it!
My newest case of being helped out by living people with a link to my ancestor's past:
Another 3rd great grandfather who died in 1935 was from Switzerland. I have no clue whereabouts, I have been to Salt Lake's Genealogy Library in hopes to find info, and we were forwarded to a paid genealogist in Switzerland, after finding nothing. The Swiss researcher couldn't find anything either.
We know so much about this grandfather when he appears in Washington State. He has his family here, raises them here, and they homesteaded and lived on an island in the South Puget Sound. I have been to his property and what's really infuriating is; I have seen the rusted old seat in his outhouse but I haven't seen a ship manifest. Which one do you think would be harder to find?! It had been a few years since I had met with the historical society on the island who took me to his house, but I hadn't learned anything new about him. My Grandfather had a son who lived in the house and he died in the 80's and then all of the family stuff was given to the island museum; which I had also been to.
The helpful hint here is social networking. This island has a community Facebook group which I was able to join. I asked the group if anybody knew of anyone who would be able to tell me more about my Great Great Uncle and hopefully my Great Great Uncle, who died in the 80's told someone the story of his father's coming to America. I was given the phone number of an 87 year old woman who was the step daughter of a different son of my 3rd Great Grandfather. I am so thrilled about this. I haven't been able to call her yet, but I have given the number to another family member to call her since I am not in the states. I sure hope she will be able to shine some light on the Swiss history of the family!
There are either living people who are as sharp as a tack that are always helpful if asked the right questions. Also heirlooms and family bibles that should be located, just for the sake of knowing where they are so they don't get lost. Don't go after them and claim to have rights to them like a crazy person. Collaboration with cousins is so important, too. I know family's who have 2 too many researchers who are both in a competitive mind set. Not working together is their downfall. I guarantee both have the answers to their questions but they just don't know it. No shame in asking questions. No shame in making a phone call to a stranger (it's nerve racking sometimes but well worth it). The worse they could say is "No".
It's worth a try. Never give up!
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