Theory to Practice: Tracing Living Relatives #2

In my previous post I discussed using information I found on the 1940 US federal census to successfully trace a living cousin. I was deliberately vague to avoid revealing information about living relatives in a public blog post. I was very lucky in this particular case because my cousin’s first name and married surname are, as far as I can find, a unique combination in the US. But it is possible to trace down to a living relative even when it isn’t comparably easy.

One of my primary tools, about which I learned when I took Boston University’s Genealogical Research Certificate program, is Veromi.net. There are a number of other tracking sites out there, but I started out with that one and I’ve continued to use it, partly because it has a section that it calls “Possible Associates,” “Associated Names,” etc. While those that do things like heir tracking for a living will often pay to use the subscriber sections of the site, for my purposes I simply cull information from the free portions.

I will start out searching the entire country and see how common the first and last name combination are. If they are common, I will narrow it to the last state that was listed for the person on the records I have, though I remain aware that it is possible they are no longer living in that state. If a hit looks like a possible match, I will take any associated names and plug them back into genealogical databases and see what I find. I have sometimes been able to confirm I have found the correct person solely using records I find via the associated names. Similarly, I have sometimes been able to rule out that it is the correct person solely using associated name records. I also search newspaper databases and search engines to see what comes up.

Once I have a best candidate, I will look them up in online directories. Even if I find a phone number, I typically write them a letter instead, because I feel that it’s a better way to allow them time to digest the information and decide how they want to respond. Many have been returned to me unopened. Some other folks have responded via snailmail that they are sorry but they are not the person I am seeking. Sometimes I never get an answer and have no idea whether it reached the final destination and the person wasn’t interested, or whether it never got there. All of this is absolutely worthwhile for the cases like the one I posted yesterday, where I am able to connect with a living descendant of the other line.

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