Your family may have split up decades ago. Perhaps death, divorce, adoption, foster care, addictions, crimes or family feuds separated you from relatives whose company you might enjoy. You may also need information about your family's medical history or a complete list of all family members for a legal proceeding, such as dividing an inheritance. Finding your lost relatives can involve searching online or hiring a private investigator and may take time and persistence.
Step 1
Read as many stories of people searching for lost family members as possible so you can prepare yourself emotionally for the search and pick up useful tactics from other searchers. Adoptee websites, such as Adoption.org's "Adoptee and Birth Parent Reunion Stories," are filled with good search strategies and useful advice on how to handle emotional family reunions.
Step 2
Record in a notebook everything you know about your lost family members, and ask other relatives that you are in touch with for any information they remember about your missing relatives. Collect any family paperwork that you or your relatives still have about your missing kin, including photographs, and put them in a folder.
Step 3
Visit lost family member and family genealogy websites, including genealogical websites for people with your relative's last name. One example is "Genealogical Journeys in Time: Missing Persons," which has links to different types of family member search websites. Other websites, usually called "people finders," will dig up people with your relatives' names from their databases and give you their addresses and phone numbers. Often, these services charge fees, and you may get multiple listings in many states of people who are unrelated to you, or the listings may be out of date.
Step 4
Check local phone books in the area in which your relatives were last known to live, put a notice in the classified ads of that community's newspapers and search the newspaper's archives for mentions of your family members. If your relatives were separated from your family by an organization, such as a state foster care department, an adoption agency or a prison, inquire about your relative with them. One website, "Ancestor Hunt," has comprehensive links to many search engines, including some with data about prison records and missing crime victims.
Step 5
Search through Facebook and your other online personal networks for people with your relatives' names. If your relatives had a special interest or hobby, visit websites devoted to that interest, and ask if anyone has heard of your relatives. Create a blog called, "My Search For [your relatives' names]" and add updates to your search every month.
Step 6
Hire a private investigator if your other efforts have failed. In an online essay, "How To Select A Qualified And Credible Private Investigator," Jeffrey Starnes of ExpertLaw.com notes that you should ask each private investigator that you interview if the investigator has a license and a business permit. Payscale, a national career website, estimates that a private investigator may charge you between $15 to $32 per hour.
Things You'll Need
- Pen
- Notebook
- Folder
