Finding Your Ancestor's Parents
Possible documents that might list the names of the parents of your ancestor
It is a common question in genealogy research to ask how to find the names of someone's parents.
Here are a few documents that might list the parents:
- Birth record
- Marriage record
- Death record
- Church record for baptism/christening
- Church marriage record
- Obituary
- Civil War pension file
- Census record of your ancestor listed as a child with parents
- Census record of your ancestor in later years with an elderly parent living with them
- Family bible
- Written histories of your ancestor's family
- Written histories of the town/county where your ancestor lived
- All of the above records for your ancestor's siblings
- Tracking your ancestor and their siblings through the census records and looking at the neighbors living nearby may give clues about who their family could be.
- If you find a possible father for your ancestor, finding the probate/will record for him may give the names of his wife and children.
If your ancestor lived after 1900, these documents may also help:
- Birth certificate
- Marriage certificate
- Death certificate
- Social Security application (SS-5)
- World War I or World War II draft registration card
- Naturalization papers
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1.3 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.
Related Topics
- Learning Genealogy Articles more than 140 helpful articles to help you to do genealogy more effectively
- Identifying Where Genealogy Records Are Located Guidelines for identifying a jurisdiction where your ancestor's records are located
- Discovering Birth Records Types of genealogy records that may list a birth date
- Searching for Death Information Tips on finding death certificates and obituaries