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Before I was born, my grandfather on my father's side passed away; and recently a few years ago, my grandmother on my father's side as well. Since my grandfather's passing, I have struggled to find any information on his family since my father's memory of the family's last location is vague, and we barely have any resources to work with. If I wanted to track down my family without having to spend wods of cash on ancestry (considering I've heard mixed responses from their site) what would be the best course of action if I wanted to see about tracking down family members from my grandfathers side and getting back in touch with them?
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I had a similar situation on my dad's side and also for my father in-law. I did the free trial on Ancestry.com to see what everyone else had on their trees and that helped greatly. You aren't charged as long as you cancel before your free trial ends in 15 days.
You say their location was vague but if you could get a general idea of where they died, there will probably be a newspaper obituary. From an obituary you can often find names of relatives and maybe some information about where they worked and lived, what groups they might have belonged to, etc. So you could get some leads there.
You might find obituaries in Ancestry or another online source. Often, public libraries will have Ancestry for you to use for free!
There are a lot of knowledgeable and helpful people on this forum who can offer more ideas. Good luck.
Having never known my father or anyone on his side of the family, I did some research (with what very little I knew) on Ancestry.com on the free local library site. Over time, I was able to trace that side of the family all the way back to the 1200's! Count me 'amazed' since the surname is not all that unique. It just takes a little perseverance and initiative.
(note: Ancestry.com didn't go back that far, but, I was able to locate some other free online resources, such as old family record books).
Before I was born, my grandfather on my father's side passed away; and recently a few years ago, my grandmother on my father's side as well. Since my grandfather's passing, I have struggled to find any information on his family since my father's memory of the family's last location is vague, and we barely have any resources to work with. If I wanted to track down my family without having to spend wods of cash on ancestry (considering I've heard mixed responses from their site) what would be the best course of action if I wanted to see about tracking down family members from my grandfathers side and getting back in touch with them?
Thanks.
You start with what you know and work backwards.
Death certificates usually have birth place, birthdate, and parents' names. Sometimes the info is incorrect but it can be good starting point as well as an obituary or funeral home record or headstones or probated will. If they owned real estate, the transfer of land titles can sometimes yield relatives. I have had to follow ancestor siblings to find the ancestor I was interested in. The more info you can amass the easier it is to find people in old records.
If your ancestors were notorious in some way, newspapers will be certain to have mention of them. Otherwise census, marriage, birth, death records are the most common sources of information for ordinary people. Each state is different. Some states have records going way back and others only to about 1910. Some marriage certificates had much information while others only the bride and groom and whether they were of age. Some are online but many are not.
Once you get the right family located the census records help identify children...then marriages for children can be found, births, deaths etc....plus once you locate one census it is easier to locate the previous one 10 years before and so on back through the years. Immigration years are listed on some censuses which can point to period of time to look for immigration records.
If you wish to post what you know about a deceased relative or two, people here will take quick looks. For people who research all the time it is easy to quickly see if your ancestor trail will be difficult or easy to follow. So post your deceased grandparents names--approximate year of death and location.
Before I was born, my grandfather on my father's side passed away; and recently a few years ago, my grandmother on my father's side as well. Since my grandfather's passing, I have struggled to find any information on his family since my father's memory of the family's last location is vague, and we barely have any resources to work with. If I wanted to track down my family without having to spend wods of cash on ancestry (considering I've heard mixed responses from their site) what would be the best course of action if I wanted to see about tracking down family members from my grandfathers side and getting back in touch with them?
Thanks.
As others have said you can use Ancestry for free on many public library computers.
Wow everyone, thank you for so much feedback! I wasn't expecting to hear back at first since people really weren't responding that quick.
I do know quite a bit about my grandmothers side as she passed away in 2013 and had a service that was located at "Scalia Funeral home", 28 Eltingville blvd, statan island NY, on a Sunday from October 27, from 2pm-4pm, and 7pm -9pm. She was born on December 5th, 1946 and died on October 25th, 2013. Her name was Bonita Hernandez. From what I know, she was married twice (believe her first husband's last name was Veit). And her second husband was 'Donald D'Angelo' (My grandfather that I never met).
As far as my grandfather is concerned, I know very little about him other then the fact he was once married to my grandmother. My father claims he was born in Italy since my dad notes he had an immigrant 'patch' on his arm for when he was vaccinated, and claims he died in Florida when was father was around 18 (My dad was born in 1970).
That's about all I have on my grandfather, and until I can find something solid to work with, I don't know how to possibly try and find any other members from that side of the D'Angelos. If someone could do some research, that would really be such a life changing experience for me to know about those other relatives.
Having never known my father or anyone on his side of the family, I did some research (with what very little I knew) on Ancestry.com on the free local library site. Over time, I was able to trace that side of the family all the way back to the 1200's! Count me 'amazed' since the surname is not all that unique. It just takes a little perseverance and initiative.
(note: Ancestry.com didn't go back that far, but, I was able to locate some other free online resources, such as old family record books).
Be careful with lineage books, they can be inaccurate.
Wow everyone, thank you for so much feedback! I wasn't expecting to hear back at first since people really weren't responding that quick.
I do know quite a bit about my grandmothers side as she passed away in 2013 and had a service that was located at "Scalia Funeral home", 28 Eltingville blvd, statan island NY, on a Sunday from October 27, from 2pm-4pm, and 7pm -9pm. She was born on December 5th, 1946 and died on October 25th, 2013. Her name was Bonita Hernandez. From what I know, she was married twice (believe her first husband's last name was Veit). And her second husband was 'Donald D'Angelo' (My grandfather that I never met).
As far as my grandfather is concerned, I know very little about him other then the fact he was once married to my grandmother. My father claims he was born in Italy since my dad notes he had an immigrant 'patch' on his arm for when he was vaccinated, and claims he died in Florida when was father was around 18 (My dad was born in 1970).
That's about all I have on my grandfather, and until I can find something solid to work with, I don't know how to possibly try and find any other members from that side of the D'Angelos. If someone could do some research, that would really be such a life changing experience for me to know about those other relatives.
Thanks
Since he may not have been born before or living in the US before 1940, your best bet is to find an obituary, or get a copy of his death certificate.
Florida allows anyone to order a death certificate without the cause of death listed, so you should be able to do that: Death | Florida Department of Health
They also say the grandchild of the deceased can order a death certificate with the cause of death included, but you would probably have to prove your relationship to him.
Granted, they ask you supply the death date and city or county of death, which you don't know - but hopefully they can still find it if you provide them with an approximate year of death. Order by mail, not through VitalChek (they will charge an arm and a leg).
If you get can his death certificate, that will provide his parents names, where he was born, when he was born, etc. You may not find Italian records online for him and his parents even once you know what town/city to look in, because they might be too recent. But FamilySearch.org (which is free) has a lot of Italian records: https://familysearch.org/search/coll...ntryId=1927178 - some go up to the 1920s, 30s, even 40s so you could luck out. If your grandfather was born circa the 1940s or earlier, his parents might have been born circa 1920s or earlier. FamilySearch.org also have even more Italian records available on microfilm that haven't been digitized yet - but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
As for obituaries, I tried genealogybank.com since I have a subscription with them - they had one obituary for a Donald D'Angelo in Florida in 1990 (which would have made your dad 20):
D'Angelo, Donald, 58, MIRAMAR, died Sunday. Service in New York. Fred Hunter's Miramar Home.
Miami Herald, The (FL) - Wednesday, June 20, 1990
I know it's not much to go on - could that be him? It sounds like your family is from NY so it would make sense for his funeral to be there. If you think it's him, you now at least have a date and place of death which you can use to order his death certificate and get more info on his birth date/place and parents. Since anyone can order a Florida death certificate without the cause of death included, you might as well order it - even if it's not him, you might be able to rule it out by ordering it.
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