September 22, 2023
One of my favorite parts of genealogy is its unpredictability. You never know exactly what you might find when you sit down to research.
Maybe today will be the day that a distant cousin reaches out to you. Perhaps someone will respond to a twenty-year old post.
If, like me, you like a little unpredictability in your research, there are things you can do that will help you get the serendipity you crave. The best way is to reach out to others.
Write an article for your local genealogical society’s newsletter or another local publication. Many newsletters are indexed by the Allen County Public Library into the Periodical Source Index. PERSI is an online database available to search for free. I have had responses to articles that I wrote for our local newsletter twenty or more years ago. Local newsletters are always looking for content, so this is an easy way to make your research available to a broad audience.
Most genealogists want to contact distant cousins who might know more about their ancestors. A good way to do this is to place your family tree on a variety of platforms. Ancestry, My Heritage, Find My Past and American Ancestors are just a few examples of places that invite you to build family trees. FamilySearch Family Tree is a collaborative family tree where you can make additions and/or corrections to an existing tree. By posting to these trees, your information is available to others. Hopefully, some of them will write to you with additional information or questions.
If you want to be more active in soliciting contact, you can write to anyone who has posted a tree on any of the platforms. Be warned that not everyone will respond to your message. Many will, however, and I have found some wonderful long-lost cousins this way. Some of them have contributed photos and other new information that I never would have found otherwise.
Once you’ve posted, it’s important that you keep your contact information updated. Update your email address even on platforms that you no longer subscribe to or rarely visit. If you have information posted on these sites, someone may see them and contact you. I recently heard from someone who had seen documents I posted twenty-five years ago on someone else’s website. My email address has changed three times during that period. Fortunately, I had kept my contact information updated.
If you’ve reached out to other genealogists, today just might be the day that someone contacts you with the bit of information that will break down a longstanding brick wall. You just never know with genealogy.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society