Birth Family Search

05/25/2026

Memorial Day is far more than a holiday filled with gatherings, grilling, and store promotions. It is a solemn reminder that the freedoms we enjoy today were paid for through extraordinary sacrifice.

Today, we pause to honor the courageous men and women who gave their lives in service to this country — heroes who surrendered their tomorrows so we could continue living ours with freedom, opportunity, and peace.

Someone’s child never returned home.
Someone’s spouse made the ultimate sacrifice.
Someone’s parent, sibling, or closest friend answered the call with courage and never came back.

Today, we remember every one of them.

As we spend time with loved ones, may we never lose sight of the bravery behind our freedoms or the deep loss carried by the families who continue on without them. Memorial Day is not only about honoring those who fell — it is about choosing to live in a way that reflects the value of what they gave.

Be kinder.
Love deeper.
Forgive faster.
Stand proud.
Treasure your freedoms.
Hold your people close.

And to every Gold Star family carrying both honor and heartbreak today — we stand with you, we remember with you, and we thank you.

May we never become so comfortable in our daily lives that we forget the men and women who sacrificed everything for ours.

05/17/2026

02/16/2026

Why Test the Oldest Person?

🧬 They carry more ancestral DNA.
Each generation loses about 50% of the previous generation’s DNA. A grandparent carries DNA that you may not have inherited.

📜 They have firsthand knowledge.
They may remember names, places, family stories, and relationships that aren’t written anywhere.

🔍 Better match quality.
Their DNA will generate stronger and closer matches, making it easier to identify shared ancestors.

How to Build the Tree After Testing

Once the DNA results are in:

Review the DNA matches
Look at close matches first (1st–3rd cousins).

Study shared matches
If Match A and Match B both match your tested relative and match each other, they likely descend from the same ancestral line.

Use shared surnames & locations
Compare:

Surnames

Locations

Migration patterns

Census records

Build the family tree gradually
Start with what you know for sure and work backward using:

Birth & death records

Marriage records

Census data

Obituaries

Cluster matches by family line
Over time, DNA clusters will begin to separate into:

Maternal grandfather’s line

Maternal grandmother’s line

Paternal grandfather’s line

Paternal grandmother’s line

And yes — as you said — the pieces really do start to come together.

Bonus Tip

If possible:

Test both oldest relatives on each side

Upload raw DNA data to other platforms for additional matches

Keep detailed notes so you don’t lose track of connections

Send a message to learn more

11/27/2025

09/18/2025

UNIDENTIFIED IN

An child was found on August 8, 1989 in Barren County, Kentucky. The body was found inside a blue suitcase on the shore along Barren River Lake in Glasgow. The child had been deceased for several months.

An anthropological assessment suggests that the remains are a young child, 2-3 years old. The gender cannot be determined.

The image featured is a facial reconstruction completed by a NCMEC Forensic Artist and depict what the child may have looked like in life. Since the child's s*x could not be determined, one image depicts the child as male and the other image as female.

Please contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST with any information that could help identify them.

Additional information can be found at their poster: https://www.missingkids.org/poster/NCMU/1184273

10/18/2024

In 1793, the Virginia General Assembly passed a law requiring that all free Black people “be registered and numbered in a book to be kept by the town clerk, which shall specify age, name, color, status and by whom, and in what court emancipated.” The process was extended to localities in 1803. In 1834, the General Assembly added a requirement that each person be specified by marks or scars and the instrument of emancipation, whether by deed or will, be recorded. Registration language and process varied across the localities, thus the information in each register may differ, but generally speaking these registers document both free born and formerly enslaved people throughout Virginia.

The Library of Virginia, through a grant from the NHPRC, provides digital access to records that document some of the lived experiences of enslaved and free Black people in the Library of Virginia’s collections. Please help improve the discoverability of these sources by transcribing one of the project's many record types, registers of free Black people.

You can sign up to transcribe documents or build an index of names via the Virginia Untold project at https://fromthepage.com/lva/virginia-untold-free-registers-indexing-set

10/18/2024

Pamela Ferreyra has been charged with one count of murder in the death of an infant boy discovered in 1994 in Monterey County, California.

10/17/2024

Andersen received an email from 23andMe asking if she wanted to know more about her health background.