How do I find relatives or ancestors without a lot of information to go on?

Question:

How do I find relatives or ancestors without a lot of information to go on?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: You build on what you know. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. If your birth certificate has "UNKNOWN" where the father's name is supposed to go, you will need to do a lot more than if he just died before you were old enough to ask him about his parents. If his name was "John Smith" and your mother refuses to speak about him, you may have to take up another hobby.

What you can and can't do depends on how much time and money you want to spend. At the extreme, a private detective might be able to find that "Unknown" father, but it would cost thousands.

You start with yourself and your parents. Once (if) you know who they are, where they were born and when they were born, you go after their parents and siblings, and so forth.

These are some resources:

Birth certificates
Death certificates
Marriage licenses
Obituaries
Marriage articles in the society pages
Cemetery records
Funeral home records
Census entries
Old city directories

Just as an example, read today's newspaper. Look at the obituaries. Look at the wedding stories in the society pages. Those will give you an idea of what goes into an obit and a weding story. They will be full of clues. If you can find the same thing for your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, you'll have a bucket full of clues.

Look at some of the answers Rust Skipper, HSK's Moma and I have given to other people for normal links. We're the top 3 in this category.