Written by professional genealogist Cheri Hudson Passey, and drawing on her experience in carrying out work for the U.S. Army Past Conflict Repatriations Branch (for UK researchers this equates to the MOD’s War Detectives from the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre Commemorations team), the stated aim of this book is to help genealogists of all levels to trace and connect with descendants of ancestors. These connections might lead to more information, documents, family memorabilia, photographs and photo identification, to enrich research and add colour to your family history.
The slimness of the book, running to 56 pages, is indicative that it is a basic overview. After the preface and methodology, the chapters are as follows:
- Building a Solid Foundation.
- Looking for Clues in Records.
- Researching Online.
- Researching on Location.
- People Finders and Social Media.
- Reaching Out to Family.
- A Word About DNA.
- Working Through a Soldier Repatriation Case: Steps for Finding Living Family.
There is also a concluding section and, to round off, a couple of pages listing tools and resources – although there are some website address errors here.
Together they provide a step-by-step guide to finding relatives down both ancestral and collateral lines, using modern tools to track them down.
Some of the steps are obvious, like ensuring your family tree is accurate and complete. The value of research plans to keep on track is discussed, as well as the need to follow the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS), concepts which may be new to non-professionals.
Building mini trees is suggested as a research tool, and the book includes several screenshots on how to export GEDCOM files with which to work from. These, along with other images, are greyscale rather than colour.
Various sources are highlighted as useful for providing clues, building a body of evidence and resolving conflicting information. Search tips are given for finding living family members, including through using online trees. Tools such as reverse image searches are covered. I was pleased to see recognition that everything is not online. And I particularly enjoyed the chapter which pulled everything together in working through a soldier repatriation case.
From my UK and Ireland research perspective, the fact that it is written by a U.S. researcher means it is naturally geared towards research in that country. This is particularly obvious in the sections dealing with locating newspapers, and people finding sources. It is explicitly acknowledged in the section about national public records. That being said, there are general tips to be gleaned from those researching beyond the U.S., especially for the less experienced researcher.
Arguably the most crucial chapter is the one about reaching out to family. It was good to see advice given about handling these tricky initial contacts. This includes being aware of the fear factor behind unsolicited contacts in this world of scammers, along with the need to respect privacy and reach out with respect and sensitivity to living connections, upholding the ethics of handling information about living, and obtaining informed consent around any information shared.
However, one important topic I would have liked to have seen covered in a little more detail was the potential ethical dilemmas posed by this aspect of family history research, very much like DNA tests, the risks of which are dealt with in the book.
Contacting distant living relatives can potentially lead to unforeseen and unintended consequences, especially if that family history is challenging and sensitive, and it might have been useful to have consideration of this aspect. This is a particular issue when the person being contacted has no obvious family history interest, and is not on a family history platform, so is unaware to the possibility of such contacts.
As I have mentioned, the book is only a brief introduction to the subject of identifying and tracking down living relatives, and ethical dilemmas are a meaty subject. But a cautionary, if not a deeper exploration of this angle, would have been helpful.
That aside, when these contacts work out the mutual benefits can be huge, and this book is a useful addition to my genealogy library as a handy and concise aide-mémoire to this type of research.
The book was published in 2025, ISBN 9780806321516. For ease I’ve attached the purchase links for both Amazon and Genealogical.com
Full disclosure: I received a free copy of the book from Genealogical.com. I was not asked for a review in return, but I thought it would be useful to post one to introduce this book to others who may not be aware of it. In doing so I have expressed my honest opinion.
I’ll start with an admission: My 2018 blogging year was not as prolific as usual. In fact it was nowhere near the efforts of previous years. But I’m far from downhearted. In fact I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope you have too.
Past To Present Genealogy 