Want To Find the Long Lost Cousin? Search Your Ancestry

Would you know how to find your ancestors if you wanted to? Sometimes all of the searching in libraries and public records can only yield so much. But that is why there are a variety of free ancestry websites out there. They have access to more information than you do, and more connections to more family trees as well. With that increased information at their disposal, they can make more connections and come to more precise conclusions than anyone with less information.

• • • What Is Ancestry?

Before you start to look for ancestry for free, it may be best to learn what exactly you will be searching for when looking. In very basic terms, your ancestor is anyone who has come before you in your family. That being said, it is not as simple as looking for a great-great-great-grandfather. Your great-great-great-grandfather’s aunt from his mother’s side, twice-removed, is still your ancestor. If you want that complete family tree, or if you want to be able trace all of the more obscure relations, it is going to be a whole lot more difficult than the straight line back of grandfathers on your father’s side.

• • • Why Ancestry?

The free ancestry websites do not ask why you want to know your ancestry. It can be for any number of reasons. One of the more common reasons for researching one’s ancestry is to be able to trace lineage back to a country of origin. Some people do not know where their ancestors came from, and their search can help them to discern their nationality.

Others may have tales passed down from one father to the next of their great-great-grandpappy having sailed over with Columbus, or some other tale that can inspire familial pride. A lot of people do their ancestral research to confirm these stories, or to discern any historically famous relatives that may have contributed to their bloodline.

• • • Where To Find Ancestry

As mentioned earlier, if you have enough information to start with, and have access to some very accurate resources, you can find your ancestors for free of charge, just by doing the research yourself. But, unfortunately, it may be inevitable that you hit a dead-end in this method. Again, using one of the free ancestry websites available, you are far more likely to get much further back in the bloodline than if you had made the effort all on your own.

Even if your family has a detailed trail of ancestry, this makes you want to trace it back online, right? It can be exciting, and might even be a good idea, to give it a try. Who knows? You just may discover a branch on that family tree that no one ever recorded, and find out that you have a cousin that no one ever knew about.