Whether you’ve been adopted, you’re estranged from your family, or you have estranged relatives, it might be difficult to find your living biological relatives. However, if you want to connect with your family, you’re going to have to start somewhere, and finding out their names is a great first step. It’s actually not as difficult as you might think to find out the names of your biological relatives, especially if they’re still living. Here are the easiest ways to find your biological relatives’ names, no matter where they might be.
Ask family members
If you’re in contact with other members of your biological family, you might be able to find out some names just by asking around. Even if the family is estranged from them, you may be able to find someone who remembers their names, or someone else who’s interested in getting in contact with those individuals. You can also follow that trail; if you find someone who can point you toward one of your living relatives, you can then ask that subsequent relative for more information, who may be able to point you toward someone else! You could find an entire portion of your family that you didn’t know existed.
Of course, if you don’t know any of your biological relatives, or you’re the one estranged from your family, this might be a little more difficult. If you were adopted, it may be worth it to look into court records or anything your adoptive parents were given when you were adopted; it might have some sort of information that you could use. If you’re estranged from your family, you may be able to contact someone on the outskirts of the family, or people who know your family members, to see if they’re willing to help.
Search the Internet
The Internet is an astounding place, and it’s very likely that at least some of your biological relatives are using it and leaving a trail, especially if they’re young. Facebook, for example, had over 2 billion monthly active users at the end of 2017, and that number is only rising as more and more people sign up to connect with others. Some members on the outskirts of the family might have other people listed as relatives, or you may be able to find people related by marriage that could help you.
Even just doing some searches on social media sites for people with your last name can help. Of course, this won’t turn up anyone whose name has changed because of marriage, unless that person has kept her maiden name, and it probably won’t be helpful if your name is extremely common, such as Smith, the most popular last name in America. Still, there’s no harm in trying!
Use an online people search
You’d be amazed at how useful people search databases can be when it comes to finding biological relatives, and especially how helpful it can be with giving you a way to contact them. Using PeopleFinders, you can find the blood relatives of nearly anyone, and the site’s public records search is helpful to get contact information for those people. The best way to use PeopleFinders to find your biological relatives is to first look yourself or your parents up, and then go from there. Once you find people that very well may be your biological relatives, use the public records feature to discover a way to contact them. Then, send an email, make a call, or just send a letter in the mail.
You may find that some of the people you contact are not relatives. This is normal and can happen if you have a very common last name or live in a city with an abundance of people. Don’t give up; keep trying to get in contact with people until you find someone! The first person you get in contact with might be able to help you find other members of your family.
Trying to find blood relatives can be a daunting task; after all, many people don’t even know where to start, and it can lead to people just not even trying. However, if you use a people search resource such as PeopleFinders, you can find your relatives easily, perhaps without help from anyone else in your family. Just by finding yourself in the PeopleFinders database, you can get started on finding any relatives that you have and perhaps get in contact with some of them.
