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How do I find a person for genealogy if they have died and I don’t have that much information about them?

me asked:


What would be the best place to find someone if I only know their first name- and it may even be a nickname- and their previous last name. I am trying to research it.

Kimberly

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 18th, 2009 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Genealogy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “How do I find a person for genealogy if they have died and I don’t have that much information about them?”

  1. HSK's mama says:
    January 19, 2009 at 10:18 am

    Derek

    I hope that you have done the research leading to this person and are not picking an arbitary person out of history hoping to find the information.

    First of all, what country are you in? If this person was born before 1930 in the U.S. or 1901 in the U.K., then you have a chance of being able to pick them up in the census— if you have her maiden name.

    If what you have is a married name AND they lived in the United States, AND they lived past 1963 then you might be able to pick them up in the Social Security Death index. Here is the link:

    If you have information on her maiden name, but nothing on her marriages, then you might want to research her known siblings. Often times, you can find a married name in the obituary of her siblings or parents.

    If she is still living, then you may have a hard time due to privacy laws.

  2. wendy c says:
    January 20, 2009 at 4:11 am

    Arlene

    Wendy’s trick for using the social security death index-
    go for the ADVANCED search option. If the persons name is not too common… use the last name only, then the state and county where they used to be. If very very uncommon.. you can expand that to the state. This CAN pick up deaths of relatives, which (with date and place), you can try for an obituary.
    Alternate trick.. leave OUT the last name, but use the first name only, again with a known county or state. If something turns up, are the dates realistic? If you are hunting a person that you know to have been born in 1950, then the ones with 1925 clearly will be wrong.
    Previous last name suggests that you are looking for a woman. That’s tricky, since the odds are that the name got changed by marriage. And if the first name is a nickname, not the correct one.. that makes it harder.
    What chance do you have that someone in the family has better info, and may tell you? And, IS it likely that the person that says they are dead, is reliable and honest? Not to suggest someone isn’t honest, but there are times when a parent claims that the other parent is dead, when they are not.
    I second what HSK mom says, that if the person is living, it makes it more difficult. Not to mention that WHERE YOU LIVE is critical to offering the best resource.
    IF you want, you can repost the question, and more details may help get a better solution. The only time I would back off on this, is if you are a minor, and looking without parental knowledge. We would be wrong to interfere in something like that.

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