There is a sense of belonging and awareness that comes with being able to know your history or lineage. We all want to know where we come from and the people that make up our family tree. However, losing a member of the family with large assets may be the trigger you need to find your family ancestry. The law requires that in the estate or will settlement, all members of the family must be identified.
If you seek to know your family history for any reason such as inheritance and will settlement, there are certain actions you can carry out to solve the problem. Genealogists have helped draw up some ways that you can figure this out on your own and with little help from a third party. Keep reading to find out more about this
1. Create A Family Tree
As creepy as this sounds, it is a basic step in making things easier and well-structured when trying to find the members of your lineage. You should create a chronological chart of your family. Also, include the names you know and remember in the chart and leave spaces for the ones you don’t remember or know.
This will give you direction on what you’re looking for and help you know where to channel your research. There may be records about them in your state’s census record so you can look this up to find more detail about them and the notable things they did in their time. This can further help you know the people they are related to who may know unpopular or unrecorded things about them.
2. Hire A Professional Genealogist
Conducting an heir search can be tasking and demanding. You may want to employ the services of probate research companies that can provide a genealogist to work closely with you. This would give you more chances of success as they are always very experienced in this field. They know the right places to look and who to ask questions.
All you have to do is to give them needed information that would aid their work and help them resolve the issue in no time. However, they may need added time to give accurate results or information. Their reports are also official documents that can be presented and are recognized in court. In cases of impersonation, they can show up in courts and help defend your case against such individuals.
This will save you time from trying to do things on your own as you may not have the wide network and access that they have. This will help you find accurate results and settle any inheritance issues that you may have.
3. Check Through Record Collections
Record collections include census records, death and birth reports, marriage reports, among others. You can find notable information that could be related to your history or family here. They can help you find information that you had no idea about. It is a somewhat quick method to getting the lineage issue solved in time.
However, there are also some overlooked records that you can look up which would be of great help. They include immigration records, Army enlistment records, Prison and Crimes Records, among others. You can find very viable information in this record so you should also pay attention to them. Apart from checking the name, you can also browse through the record pages in case of incorrect spellings of names that bring us to our last course of action.
4. Explore Alternate Spellings And Name Variations
When you go through the index of a record and could not seem to find the name you are looking for, you should look for familiar names and read through the page. Oftentimes, there are cases of misspelled names in records. Also, the way a person spells his/her name may not be spelled the same way by a clerk or recorder.
So you should find out the various ways that a name can be spelled. This can be figured out if you look through the indexed page. The indexer may also use the nicknames of the person in the records. So you should check for name variations to reduce any possible confusion in this area.
You should not give up when searching for the people that make up your lineage. It is not an impossible feat as you can get to be the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ that your family needs. You should also keep in mind that doing this successfully will help settle your family estate or will appropriately.
