Find Ancestors

Hi Heather, welcome to the boards!

I'm afraid we can't help much without some more details.

What record do you have that doesn't show your grandfather's birth mother or father?

A birth certificate will show that, for instance.

but - if you are just looking at the index of births, that won't show parents' names - you need the actual certificate.

after 1910 in England the births index will show the mother's surname. Try finding your grandfather's birth here - again, if it was in England/Wales

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

and then a marriage between the two surnames can be searched for

... but given the time of day I suspect you are possibly in Australia/NZ or North America :-)

A marriage certificate, for England, will show the father's name. Other places, like Scotland, Australian states and Canadian provinces, show more parental information.

If you can find the person in a census at a young enough age, they will usually be with their parents. If not, other ways have to be used to find the parents.


Helping usually works best if you give actual names, dates and places. Then we can help search for the information.

If you don't want to do that, give us an idea of when and where, and what this record you have is, and we can see what we might suggest.

I am trying to find the names of my great-grandparents on my mother's side. I have found my grandfather but on the record it doesn't show his birth mother or father so how can I find out his parent's names and details? :