How to Find"Lost" Cousins

I have spent countless hours on my family history and I don't begrudge a minute of it. My efforts haven't just been directed at compiling a family tree and filling in names and dates because that would only be a skeleton of a family history. I have taken a lot of time to flesh out the lives of my ancestors - I know the date one of my great-great grandfathers retired from the railway and how much pension he was paid. I have worked out that one set of great-grandparents probably met in a pub next door to where my great-grandfather worked. I even know the date on which my great-uncle Edwin applied for planning permission to build a garage onto the family home! All this minutiae has its place in giving me a rounded picture of my family, but it all papers over the crushing disappointment that is the inescapable truth for every passionate family historian - I can never meet my ancestors and so I can never truly know them.

However, not all is lost. We can find a way to get closer to our ancestors and enrich our family history; we can find our "lost cousins".

For those of us nursing this sense of disappointment there is a bridge to the past - we can meet those other descendants of our fore bearers - our "lost" cousins. Here could be a group of people whose knowledge of the family might shed more light on your own research, filling in gaps, maybe providing unseen photographs and documents and sharing your passion for your own family history.

Well, perhaps - it happens sometimes. I have been lucky enough to trace a good number of my own second cousins, who neither knew of my existence or me of theirs. The connection has been all good - not only has the family been reunited and our family history been enriched but I have gained a charming group of friends. It's not always so positive - on the other side of the family a second cousin quickly cut off contact - an old family feud, born long before either of us, seems to have revived along with our acquaintance. A few other cousins I found simply weren't all that interested in family history. So, if you are going cousin hunting, just damp down your expectations!

I tend to think that lost cousins will fall into one of two categories - those who know that they are lost and those who are blissfully ignorant of their predicament.

The first category are going to be easier to find because they are probably family historians themselves and may well be looking for you (although they may not know it is you whom they are looking for, if you follow!). Here are some likely places to find them.

1. Family History Forums

I found my first lost cousin (in actual fact she was the wife of a second cousin) through a family history forum. She had placed a message on the site saying that she was looking for the family of my great-great grandfather. I found the message when I Googled his name. Although she had placed the message several years earlier, she had kept the same email address and several hours later we were in touch. Through our association I have been able to see photographs of my great-great grandparents, read their wills and other family documents. In addition, I had found an ally in my search for other family members - with her help I have traced another half-dozen cousins. Not bad when you consider that the surname we have to work with is "Brown"!

2. Commercial Sites

Genes Reunited and Ancestry both have the facility to upload family trees and connect with others who share an ancestor. Genes Reunited in particular is geared toward finding your living relatives. You can easily send messages to other members - I have found a second cousin and two fourth cousins through the site.

3. Lost Cousins

Lost Cousins is a free site and the name is pretty self-explanatory - its purpose is solely to connect you with your distant cousins. It does involve inputting information from Census returns, which it then matches with other people's information. I haven't actually had any success with the site, but their excellent newsletter makes joining up worth it.

4. Facebook

Yes, so modern, so shallow, but in this case, so useful. Some families now set up Group pages to share family history. I have set up a page for one branch of my family and I have noticed that there are a growing number. Worth trying, particularly if you have an unusual name. In my case I don't, so added the location of our family home town to the title of our page.

5. Your Blog

If you have a family history blog, particularly on Blogger, the names on your blog will rank highly if anyone does a search for them. I didn't tell my "new" cousins about my own blog, but they quickly found it for themselves when they Googled various of our ancestors' names and found the posts I had written about them.

So, there are some ideas for reuniting yourself with lost cousins who want to be found. How do you go about finding the ones who aren't actively involved in family history?

You need to be proactive to find the next category of cousins, and you also need to be tactful.  I have made appeals for information about cousins in newspapers and on community internet message boards, as well as by contacting people directly by letter.  However, your approach needs to be polite and cautious.  You will get off to a very bad start with a prospective cousin if you plaster their local newspaper with their name - better to appeal for information about "the family of my great-uncle Edwin Smith" rather than "my cousin John Smith aged 59".   

Similarly, remember that you are looking to contact strangers - you need to take precautions to protect yourself.  Even if someone is your cousin, it doesn't guarantee that they are scrupulous.  So, give an email address, or direct people to your blog.  Keep some information about the family to yourself and make sure that they can supply the missing data to confirm that they are in fact your cousin.  Treat them as you would any stranger, until you are certain that they are trustworthy.

I have had success in tracing several cousins through research on the internet, using birth, marriage and death information, electoral registers and telephone directories, both in the UK and Australia.  It is the best feeling in the world to have someone confirm that they are who you think they are and to answer the question - how on earth did you find me!

All my content is copyright of Judi Bee – © Judi Bee 2012. All rights reserved.