 
Too often we get tunnel vision in our quest to find our ancestors, and we overlook extended family members. Choose a sibling, cousin, in-law, stepparent, stepchild, or some other collateral relative and see how much you can learn about him or her. You’ll be surprised at how often the information you gather on seemingly distant family members aids in your direct-line research.
What do you do when you don’t have any relatives to search? I know who my Greatgrandmother is but that’s all.
This is the only way I was able to correctly identify my Irish great-grandfather’s parents. They were entered incorrectly in his marriage record and missing entirely from his death record. Only by looking at the 1870 census and figuring out who everyone was that was living in adjacent houses was I able to identify his siblings. Using their marriage and death records and obits I was able to put the family together.
I find out more information on my drect relatives from what I call sideways relatives! Just recently a relative passed away and it encouraged me to look further into her husband’s family tree. I was shocked to find out that her husband’s family was also related to mine and that my second cousin on my father’s side is my fifth cousin on my mother’s side as well. It was great to discover and then share with this cousin.
Thanks for this segment. I agree wholeheartedly with the three above comments. Have personally compiled and privately published two large family data collections (books) and working on the third. Distant cousins are a treasure house of help, and willing to share. Many hope for locating books on their lines but too busy to do the push that it requires. So here I am…and what a joy it gives.
Recently two second cousins and I have met online. Our grandparents were siblings, yet as the family scattered we had never met. We have had such fun sharing photographs and history of our own family branch and comparing them to each other’s. Oddly, or perhaps not, we have found that two of us look very much alike and the other looks very much like one of my first cousins. We are attempting to plan a mega-reunion in a couple of years.
MY MOM HAD ONLY ONE COUSIN ON HER DAD’S SIDE. AND OVER THE YEARS SHE EVEN LOST CONTACT OF HIM/ THOMAS/TOMMY GEE SON OF ERVIN AND BESS GEE OF OHIO/INDIANA/CHICAGO AND CAN NOT FIND ANYTHING.SHE KNOWS HE MARRIED A WOMAN WITH CHILDREN BUT NONE OF HIS OWN SHE THINKS. HE WOULD OF BEEN BORN LATE 20′ THROUGH 30’S. MY MOM IS ALMOST 83. IT IS LIKE HE NEVER EXISTED.
Wilda, can you pls tell me how I can get an extra copy of the Joel Hundley book that you published a few years ago. Judine Hundley Hanley is my grandmother and would like a copy. Thanks, Michelle