Finding Those Living Relatives

Being a genealogist is a lot like being a detective. We search for clues, evaluate evidence and draw conclusions (hopefully based on facts). We have numerous resources and databases available to trace back in our family tree. But living people can be more of a challenge. Unless you're strictly creating an ancestor tree, you're likely also interested in descendants (and DNA matches). Information on these family members can be more challenging to find as less information about them is available on the big genealogy sites. Unless you happen to have relatives who can assist, you may need to locate other resources to find key information to place these people in your family tree.

For obvious reasons, the privacy of living people is extremely important. None of us want all of our private details out there for anyone to find. But the reality is, in the technological age we live in, a lot of our data is already out there and discoverable. I know it's not a reassuring thought, but it's reality. Unless you've staunchly stayed off the internet since its' inception, never been in trouble with the law, keep your money under the mattress, use a burner phone, have no email, don't have bills in your name and pay only in cash - it's likely there are breadcrumbs out there to some of your information. Do I sometimes look for this information on my relatives? Yes, I do. Do I make sure living people are listed as living so others can't see the information? Yes, I do. And if I find something more personal or sensitive, I save it in my offline software and mark it private so it doesn't upload to Ancestry (or any other site where I may use a GEDCOM import). Aside from verifying parents/relatives, birth date and possibly current city/state of residence, I don't really look for a lot of personal details (unless I have a very compelling reason). I urge you to treat information about living people with care and consideration, regardless of how you come upon their details.

Many obituaries are treasure troves of information, containing names of spouses, siblings, possibly parents, children and grandchildren. Often the siblings and children are listed with their spouses. But one issue I run into frequently, is the listing of given names only for some of the family members. It can be a real head scratcher to figure out who each "belongs to" in the family hierarchy. Sometimes our DNA matches have a very sparse tree, if they have one at all. We may recognize a name a couple generations back, but not have the details to fill in the gaps of the living generations we can't see to reach the DNA match. In these cases, we may need to turn to alternative methods of finding the details we need.

Certainly, social media is one option. However, doing a random search on a name (unless it's a very unusual name) is likely to return far more results than you can realistically review. And to be honest, how would you know if it was the right person or not? If you're already friends with some of your family members, depending on the chosen security settings of each person, you may be able to search their friends lists looking for specific living relatives. But this is dependent on them actually having a social media account and it being visible to others. It's possible some older living relatives have never been on social media. In some cases, you may be able to search the posts of family members to glean information like birthdates of their children or grandchildren. You might find posts about graduations, marriages, births, or deaths. All these are a lot of maybes and can take a lot of time. Have I been successful finding some details on social media? Yes, I have. But the information has been limited to a small handful of relatives and has been sparse at best. 

While there are lots of sites offering to search living people for a fee - I avoid them like the plague! Just as with social media, in order to really find relevant results, you need to have information. If you had it, you probably wouldn't be considering additional search tools. Enter FamilyTreeNow.com. If you have a name, and a possible location, you can do a basic search (on living or deceased people). This may still return a fair number of living people results, but using the potential location does narrow it a bit. You may have to pick thru the results to see if the person is who you're after. Or you may need to search again with another location, or potentially a maiden name. If you are lucky enough to have a bit more detail, an advanced search is possible on a limited number of additional fields to narrow the search further. 

This site uses primarily public records. The information you find may or may not be accurate (especially current address, phone and email). When I search myself, there are email addresses shown not relevant to me at all, and some of my possible associates are people I've never heard of. It's important to know you cannot depend on the displayed information unless you're able to back it up with additional documentation. You will NOT find documentation on this site for living people. They do pull from census records and some other historically relevant databases for people they show as deceased, but you're better off using Ancestry (or your preferred big genealogy site) for this information. While I do use the site frequently, it's for a very specific set of conditions where I believe the information I find can help me place some of my living relatives in my tree. I still need to go back and find additional proof to firm up my hypothesis on anything I find. 

When I use the site, I generally focus on living people records only. The types of information shown may include other names the person has used, addresses (past and present), phone numbers, email addresses and the most important - possible relatives. This is the section of the search results I use the most. Quite frequently, I'm able to pick out a parent, spouse or siblings. Clicking through to the related person may further assist me in making a determination if the person is who I'm looking for. 

Recently, I was working with an obituary where the person had 5 children. The problem was the 6 or so grandchildren listed only by given name. I was able to search the potential parents and, using the possible relatives section, I was able to determine the parents of 4 of the grandchildren pretty easily. The remaining 2 took a little more work (especially since one was listed with a nickname). I was ultimately able to discern one of the daughters had been married previously (in the obit she was listed with her current husband) and I was eventually able to locate where the 2 other grandchildren should be placed in my tree (as well as including the previously unknown spouse). I was able to find birth month and year, along with proper surnames for all 6 grandchildren. Another example of where I use this tool is when a child or grandchild is now married and listed with a new surname. I can search the name (and potentially location if it was included) and look for relatives of the approximate right age to be parents (or sometimes grandparents). I may also find names of current or previous spouses. Though it may take a bit of clicking through to various people, in conjunction with names I recognize from my tree, quite often I'm able to figure out the connection!

Depending on their age, filling in just name and birth month/year in my Ancestry tree may then bring up search results (usually public records or marriage records) so I can conduct more conventional research moving forward. In some cases it does not. If not, I usually add a private note for myself how I came to add the person to the tree, and I'll go back and do more detailed research in the future. I use this site as an accompaniment to traditional research, NEVER as a replacement. It's a source of breadcrumbs, not proof.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out FamilyTreeNow.com is not well liked by everyone. First off, they clearly scrape public records. Some people feel this is a privacy issue in and of itself. Personally, I simply accept some level of information about us is out there waiting to be found. They also collect data as you use the site (as do most websites). I would encourage you to read their privacy policy before using the site. While they indicate you can request to have your own personal information removed, they don't guarantee they can do it, I've read several instances where people complain they've been unable to have their data removed. The question really comes down to your personal comfort level. Data is out there about living people. Not looking for it isn't going to change the fact. But only you can decide if your comfortable sleuthing for it.

And finally, if I do use social media or FamilyTreeNow.com to fill in any gaps in my tree, and no new traditional records show up when I add a few key facts, I typically use a "generic" source in my online tree pointing only to the main website. I don't link to specific search results or profiles. I do save a screenshot of the information, but I do it only in my offline software and always mark it private. When searching living people, please respect the privacy of those in your tree (even if you believe the information is not visible to others). Data breaches can happen, and data we put online is never guaranteed to be 100% protected. While these methods can potentially help piece together the recent branches of your tree, it's critical to go back and try to support the information you find on quasi-questionable sites with traditional research. 

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