Chapter 1 - Why Find Family? By now, you have probably seen commercials on TV about people who have found long lost family members using a popular website, Ancestry.Com. This site has been around for a while and has helped people find grandparents and even great grandparents that they wondered about. Most of the advertisements include those who found out about their fathers or grandfathers who they never knew and may have been told misleading information concerning the person. While this is a good place to start to look for long lost relatives, it is not the only site that offers you a quick peek into records that are public information. There are others and, if you dig far enough, you can get the information for free. Information about long lost relatives takes two forms. It can be relatives that you have not seen in a while or never knew existed, or it can be your ancestors. To find your ancestors you have to go back a few generations. Finding out that your grandfather served in WWI is not finding an ancestor that you never thought you had. You knew you had a grandfather, might not have know much about him, but he is not an ancestor - he is a antecedent. Ancestors go many generations back and are people that you could not possible know because they died before you could have been born. There are many reasons to find family members. Most of us have a desire to find out where we spring from. We may hope that we have famous relatives on our side. When I did my searches to find relatives I never knew I had, I found that one of the original “Untouchables” who worked with Eliot Ness was my second cousin, three times removed. But there is much more than just finding out glory relatives when you are trying to find them online. It is about finding a connection with people who had the same blood as you, from whom you descended. And without whom, you would never be. Another reason why people may look for relatives that they never knew that they had is because they want to connect with people who are still alive but who share the same bloodlines. I have found many cousins online that I never knew existed because of the internet. We have shared pictures of family members. One of my greatest feats was finding a family picture of my great grandparents and grandfather, along with his siblings, when he was a little boy. Living relatives may have pictures of family members that can help you or they may have stories to tell about those you never got to know. One of the best things to come along for this is the internet and the number of public records that are now accessible online. Prior to the internet, you had to write to local counties and obtain information from their sources. It could take you many years to track down records about relatives through these government sources. You can find relatives that you never knew existed by going online or you can find long lost ancestors, depending how far back you want to search. You can usually get to the era around the Civil War as this is when most records started to be recorded. In order to go further, you will have to go off line and do some searching on your own. There are always death records, marriage records and birth records that were recorded prior to these times, although do not be disappointed if you run into dead ends or that records were destroyed. The main reason that people search for long lost relatives online is to tell a story. When you do this, you are giving an historical account of your life. From the beginning. Of how you came to be and the many sets of gene pools that created you. It can be an interesting journey, but one that is arduous, despite the convenience of the internet and sites like Ancestry.Com that make it convenient for you. You may end up being surprised or disappointed at what you may find. You may have been told that your family members dated back hundreds of years and then find that they came over in the early part of the last century. You may find criminals and other notorious persons in your past. Or you may find a hero or two. Chances are that you will find a mix of people in your family tree that can help you understand where you came from. Once you understand what you can find and are prepared to go find it, the next step in searching for relatives is to get started.  Chapter 2 - Getting Started Like everyone else, you have two sides to your family -your father’s side and your mother’s side. In my case, I knew all about my mother’s people as far back as to the point where they entered this country. I knew that my great-grandparents were fishermen in Palermo, Sicily and that they came here as adults seeking a better way of life. My father’s side, however, was a mystery. No one knew too much about them, in particular, my father’s father. My dad’s father died young and his father had died after being shot during a holdup. He was a police officer and no one knew too much about him. My grandfather had two full blooded siblings and, after his mother re-married, two half-brothers. That was all we knew about him. My paternal grandmother also had mysterious roots. Her father left the family when she was young and her mother married another man. She had three siblings and the other man ended up to be a good husband and father to my great grandmother. I can remember my great grandmother and the stories that she told. She died when I was 12 and she said that her people came from the Mayflower, which I do not know to be true. My father is not even sure of where her people came from, but heard somewhere that they were English mixed with Scotch blood. Like you, I had many choices when I decided to get started. As I knew so much about my mom’s side of the family, I decided to find out about my dad’s side of the family. I knew my grandmother, grandfather and both my great-grandmothers from this side of the family, but no one seems to remember the name of my father’s paternal grandmother (her first name) although my dad is pretty sure that he knew her married name. It was very murky and I as I like a challenge, this was the side of the family that I decided to focus on. The side where no one knew where anyone came from, had trouble finding out names and had no idea how my great grandfather on this side ended up dying (I found out the information through my search). As it turns out, this was the side of the family where one of the “Untouchables” hailed from. It was an interesting journey to discover this for my father and to be able to tell him that he was related to someone who made somewhat of a mark in history in Chicago. The funny thing is that we were all from the east and ended up in Chicago some 35 years ago. As was my dad’s second cousin, who helped bring down Al Capone. You have to know where to start when you are doing your ancestry searching. For some people, they may choose to find the easiest way to look up their roots. They may have extended family with whom they keep in touch and find out about relatives through stories and pictures. Others may want to delve into the unknown and discover the truth about missing relatives or those who had lives that were cut short or of whom people knew very little about. I chose this path because we heard that my great-grandfather had left the family (one of the many rumors about my dad’s paternal family) so I decided to go and find out for myself. The fact that he was shot on duty as a police officer - that he didn’t leave the family and his children because he ran off, gives my dad comfort. So pick a side that you want to investigate first. I say first because once you start looking up your family tree and finding relatives that you never knew existed, you might find that you are addicted to doing this and decide to look up all branches of your family tree. SOUND AND LOOK INTERESTING? I THINK JUST KNOWING WOULD BE A GREAT RELIEF - WE ALL WANT TO KNOW WHERE WE CAME FROM! Grab Your Copy For Only… $29.95 I know you will get something from this well written eBook! Grab Your Copy For Only . . . $29.95 Remember: Knowledge is power - And Great Knowledge is Powerful. When reading an eBook can MOVE you - Isn’t that feeling worth the price of the wonderful read? ENJOY! APPLY! SHARE!

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