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Question:HOW DO YOU FIND OUT WHERE YOUR FAMILY CAME FROM IF BOTH YOUR GRANDPARENTS ARE DEAD ON ONE SIDE AND IF ON THE OTHER SIDEONLY ONE IS ALIVE AND BARELY SANE. SO CAN SOMEONE...HELP...

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: HOW DO YOU FIND OUT WHERE YOUR FAMILY CAME FROM IF BOTH YOUR GRANDPARENTS ARE DEAD ON ONE SIDE AND IF ON THE OTHER SIDEONLY ONE IS ALIVE AND BARELY SANE. SO CAN SOMEONE...HELP...

This is about ways to get information from elderly or as you indicated ("barely sane") people. To be successful you do have to use a different approach than you would for a younger relative. Really because as we get older, specific facts often are deep in our minds, and very difficult to extract. To use a mainly interrogative method as you would use with say your uncle, first isn't likely to be successful with an elderly person, but is also likely to frustrate them very much....I "should" be able to remember that...", bringing into the forefront to them that they are old and aren't remembering things THEY feel they should. Not a pleasant experience.

With an elderly person, the details are in STORIES! If you can, record you talk - and it is a talk. Not only will that allow you to just carry on the conversation unimpeded by notetaking, but it is a wonderful keepsake at a later time when the person is no longer with you.

But it is stories. Getting the elderly person to relate EVENTS, not specifics. An example -- just relate to the person how you recently saw a picture of the house you grew up in, how it caused you to remember a lot of things about growing up. Then just casually ask, "do you remember the house you grew up in?" "What was it like?" Lead them starting with an experience related to YOU. "I remember it was fun having the relatives (you use specific names if you can) come to visit (stay). Did you have any relatives come to visit you often in your house? --- BINGO you might find out about some relatives here, relatives the person would never be able to come up with if just asked.

Relate other fun things --- I remember taking vacations with my family going to visit you (the person you are talking to), or some other relative. Did your family ever go on vacations anywhere? -- You have already seeded their mind with vacations to visit relatives so just leave the question "open" as in go on ANY vacations? Then draw out those stories - what they remember about the vacations.

I hope you see where this goes. It is being casual, just sitting around telling stories - of course you are directing the stories in hopes of getting family information - but really just telling stories. Not asking who was your grandfather's brother - but drawing out a story from the past that might give some clues about his granfather's brother.

And be patient and watch for fatigue. Nothing has to be done in one sitting.

And most important - share this tape, these stories, what you found with OTHER relatives, like your parents, an Uncle. Upon hearing the story (like maybe this person indicated he had gone to visit his relative Johnny), you often find the Uncle Bill can now say -- oh Johnny, that was probably grandaddy's brother's child. Even though Uncle Bill didn't recall anything about grandaddy's brother until he heard the story.

But straight interrogation has little success with elderly people. Getting stories out of them is where the information lies.

This is classic psychologist interviewing techniques adapted to this particular use.

BE PATIENT! Be casual! Have fun. And you will be rewarded.

I got my first information from my parents, Aunts and Uncles.
Then I found out that my cousin had already started a book on our family.

Get as much as possible from living people.Sometimes people who are getting feeble minded remember old times very well.

Go to your library and see what all they have in the genealogy section. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can take advantage of. Ancestry.Com has lots of records and is getting more all the time. They have all the U. S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 is not available to the public yet. They have U. K. censuses also.

Now, don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on any web site, free or paid. The information is user submitted and mostly not documented. Even if you see the same information repeatedly by many different submitters, that is no guarantee it is correct. A lot of people are copying without verying. Use the information as CLUES as to where to get the documentation.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has lots of records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee.

They have never tried to convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell. I haven't heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources.

Birth certificates, marriage certificate, death certificate and applications for social security numbers are very important. You will generally find the names of both parents including mother's maiden name and on the death certificate and application for a social security number, they usually provide the place of birth of both parents.

Social Security went into effect January 1, 1935. I have found an uncle that died as early as 1957 in the Social Security Death Index. You only need their name as they were listed on Social Security OR their social security number. You don't need both. Two free sites have the SSDI, Rootsweb and FamilySearch.org (LDS, not One Great Family site). If a person was drawing social security at time of death and on their own social security number, you probably will find them. Now, they have people who got Medicaid on the SSDI. They might not have ever put into SS or drew SS but they had to have a social security number to get Medicaid. A lot of elderly people have had to get Medicaid. The 2, I have seen had the wrong dates of death.

Now, in the U. S., each state has its own laws about who and when a person can get a birth or death certificate. It use to be in Texas if you were not immediate family, you had to wait 50 years after a person's birth to get a copy of their birth certificate. Now it is 75 years. A lot of states are clamping down due to identity theft.

Also, in the U.S., governing bodies as a rule did not start recording vital information until the first quarter of the 20th century. Even after they started recording the information, a lot of people who were born at home or died at home did not get recorded.

So before the vital records were being recorded, you need to turn to Church records, births, baptisms, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage and Death. All give names of both parents including mother's maiden names in the Catholic Church and I would imagine in some of the other churches.

There are a couple of simple ways.
1. birth and death certificates
2. census records

Start gathering things like copies of marriages licenses, death certificates, obituaries of your immediate family.
Any artifact, family bibles etc that may hold info.
go to your local family history library and dive into the census records.
Go to your local public library and ask if they have a genealogy room or branch.
Take alot of notes, check all the genealogy websites.