Unknown children

[etgoodey]

Hi!
Can anyone tell me the best way to find out if a past relative had any children? Is there a way of linking parent information to any children that they may have had rather than linking the children to the parents?
Thanks
Ed

 

[KeithS]

Hi Ed,

Working forward in time can be problematic. Not impossible, but certainly creates a greater chance of losing your way.

There are a few questions to ask yourself.

1) What period in time are you talking about?
2) Do you know the names of both parents?
3) Do you know when they married?
4) Do you know where they married?
5) Do you know where they lived after they were married?
6) Are you absolutely certain that this person (or these people) are actually relatives of yours?
7) Have you tried checking the births records of the St Catherine\'s House indexes?

These should be available at a library close to you. If you can find the marriage of the parents, you will need to check the birth records for a period of up to 25 years following the marriage. If you have the names of both parents, and the are they lived in, this should be relatively easy. Time consuming, but relatively easy. Don\'t bother trying to use the online facilities for St Catherine\'s House. You only get five look-ups for £15.00. That most certainly is NOT worth it. You are looking at the need to go through at least 100 rolls of microfilm to be sure you have not missed any children.

But, the effort should bear fruit.

Keith.

 

[JTP]

I'm new to this stuff too. i think most death certificates list children and their ages

 

[KeithS]

Of course, there is another way of doing this. You could check the Family Search website and do a search on ancestors. Enter as much information as you can on the form. When the results come up, there will probably be a list of them, it will then be a case of working your way through them one at a time. As the details for each entry come up, look at the right hand side of the line and it will give you links to "pedigree" and, sometimes, "family".

Using this method, I traced information covering three generations in about 30 minutes last night. This covered 19 individuals and even brought up information on where two of those individuals were buried in the USA.

Keith.