How to Find Descendants in the United States: Difference between revisions

'''Motives for descendancy research.''' Researchers sometimes do descendancy research in order to:  

'''More names per generation.''' One advantage of descendancy research is the potential number of names you could find. Most families have more than two children per couple. If all those children marry and have more than two children, there is a potential to find more relatives by descendancy research than in the same number of generations of pedigree research. However, to be fair, pedigree researchers also usually research the immediate children of each couple on their pedigree. In theory, assuming each generation has exactly four children who live, marry once, and have exactly four children, in three generations, pedigree researchers would find 42 relatives (counting spouses and immediate children), and descendancy researchers would find 106 relatives. With larger families the difference can increase dramatically. This way of counting names does not change the number of actual people who have lived—it only changes because of who you count as a relative.   

     

<br>'''Find people who are doing research&nbsp;for&nbsp;names that tie into&nbsp;your pedigree.&nbsp;''' If you can locate a genealogical collection that someone else has done, you can get in touch with them and share information and sources--extending your pedigree.  

'''More clues.''' Descendancy research can lead you to important clues, contacts, or records such as family Bibles that you might not find if you researched only direct ancestors and their immediate children. Collaborating with new contacts about the new clues you find may help you get past dead ends in your ancestral research.  

'''More recent records''' are usually easier to find, more complete, and easier to understand. Descendancy research takes advantage of more recent records over earlier, usually harder-to-find older records.  

'''''It may be harder.''''' Some genealogists consider descendancy research more difficult than pedigree research. This is because finding children is sometimes more difficult than finding parents. There are always exactly two parents of each child, but the number of children of each set of parents can vary widely. In many cases there tends to be more documents that are likely to name the parents of a child, and fewer documents that list all the children of a set of parents. Finding children who died young and between censuses is often more difficult than finding parents.  

'''''No shortage of pedigree names.''''' It is true you can find more names in three generations of descendancy research than in three generations of pedigree research. So what? There is no shortage of names for a pedigree researcher willing to go back a few more generations and concentrate on the immediate children of direct line ancestors.  

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Step 4: Consult Additional Sources  

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=== '''''Step 1: Prepare'''''  ===

*'''Begin with individuals or families alive around 1850.''' People who lived in the period from the mid-1800s to the present are usually easier to find. In many countries, birth, and death records began to be created by the mid-1800s. Also, some countries began to keep census records showing the names and ages of each family member.  

*'''Record what you find on family group records.''' A family group record will enable you to record information for all the children in a family, parents and grandparents. As you search for the descendants of your ancestors, family group records will help you organize your work.

=== '''''Step 3: Collect Previous Research'''''  ===

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'''Broadening your search.''' A quick review of published family histories, compiled genealogies, and resources on the Internet will tell you how much research may still be needed. For information on how to do basic research, go to [[How to Begin a Search for Your Ancestor|How to Begin a Search for Your Ancestor]].<br>  

=== '''''Step 4: Consult Additional Sources'''''  ===

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*[http://obits.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/obit.cgi?o_xid=0028727949&o_lid=0028727949&o_xt=22478094 RootsWeb Obiturary Daily Times]  

*or use a search engine like [http://www.google.com/ Google] or [http://www.yahoo.com/ Yahoo] to search for an individual and his or her obituary.

=== '''''Step 5: Compile and Share What You Have Learned'''''  ===

'''Document what you find.&nbsp;'''As you identify the members of your ancestral families, put the information on [[Research Logs|research logs]] and family group records. The family group record is the most widely-used means for recording information about parents and their descendants.  

'''Share Your Research.''' There are many ways to share. You could put up a genealogical web page, publish a genealogical magazine article, or publish a book, or contribute to a genealogical databases like the [[Submitting to the Pedigree Resource File|Pedigree Resource File]].  

== '''Related Content'''<br>  ==

*[http://www.familysearch.org/eng/lessons/L1_Descendancy_Research.pdf Perform Descendancy Research] (pdf to accompany ''Descendany Research ''lessons 1, 2, and 3)

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