Genealogy Research – Researching Descendants

Another type of research involves starting with a past ancestor, say a great-great-grandfather, and trying to find all the living descendants of that individual.  Since this type of research is often involved as in going “up” the family tree, there are similar problem.  The 1850 “Wall” is usually not an issue however, since one is either starting more recently than that, or you are approaching the wall from the wrong direction.  The missing 1890 census is still a problem as the 20-year “leap” is still in play.

Married names – instead of having problems determining maiden names of ancestors, you have the parallel problem of finding the married name of the female children.  Again, you do know the person’s approximate age and where they and their parents were born, so these are clues.  There are some states that records marriages and these can be helpful.  (For example, there is a Connecticut Marriage Index that covers the years 1959-2012.  I was able to use this to my advantage to locate a second cousin of mine.  But other states may or may not have similar records available online.)

Non-ancestry.com Resources – For recent individuals, there may be information in newspapers (newspaper.com or just Internet research).  That is a good source for obituaries which often list family members, maiden names, etc.  But many newspapers do not have available any obituaries   beyond the last few years.

A good technique is that when you are stuck to consider researching for people related to the person you are looking for.  Perhaps a sibling, or an aunt/uncle died recently and you can find information in their obituary. 

I’m not going to try and list all the various types of searches I have done in my various quests at this type of research.  But a key is to not give up.  Sometimes you even need to just set the problem aside for a while and come back to it later when you may suddenly get a new idea of how to complete your quest.

I’m currently working on trying to find all the living descendants of my great-great-grandfather, Silas Russell, who lived from 1803-1886.  I have resolved most of the family lines.  The remaining ones include (a) four females from the mid-1800’s for whom I do not know a married name, and (b) several related individuals who would have died in the last several decades – these I expect to resolve when I contact a living relative who should have more information about them.