By now you should be armed with plenty of information about the person you are looking for and you are now ready to hit the ground running. This post will show you what to do so you will be able to move forward faster in your search. You could, realistically, be talking to that person within the next couple of weeks.
How To Get Started Finding Someone in Mexico
Start by organizing your work. A great way to stay organized is to take notes while you are talking to people about the person you are looking for. Write down everything you’ve heard because you do not know where this information could lead you. You want to be able to remember it later.
Get organized by focusing on finding the two key pieces of information that were presented in Challenge #2. Think outside the box. Think like a detective. Where did this person go? Retrace their steps. That is how you are going to find the information you need. What else could you use to get started?
Key information on family genealogy can be found in birth records, marriage certificates, and death certificates. If you have someone’s birth certificate, you then have their complete name. You also have the complete name of the person’s parents. You have the city and state where this person was born. This is a great place to start. If you know nothing about this person, you can start your research right there. We get emails all the time from people saying that all they have is a birth certificate. They have no idea how close they are to finding the person they are looking for because they do have that birth certificate.
Marriage licenses work the same way. These will give you information on people who were witnesses including the name of the church and the presiding priest or minister.
How about a death certificate? Obviously not the death certificate of the person you are trying to find, because your focus is on people who are currently alive and living in Mexico, but if you have a death certificate of one of their parents you also now know the city and the state. It is a great starting point and an incredible source of data for doing family genealogy.
Look at documents that you might have gathered in your genealogy research. Look at old post cards. Look at letters. Where are these written from? All of those are possible sources of genealogy information that you can use to find this person.
Learn the five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico. Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found!
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your Inbox? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Finding Someone In Mexico - Get the City and State
Another key piece of information that you need when trying to find someone living in Mexico is to have the city and the state of where they are or where they were living.
Finding out where they did live can be helpful if you do not know where they are living right now. Family genealogist know that having the city and state are two critical pieces of information needed to locate someone and learn more about them. Family genealogy research also includes looking at where a people is from to help identify other relatives who may still be living in the same city.
If someone has lived in Guadalajara and they came to the United States for, say, ten years, there is a very good possibility they may be going back to Guadalajara at some point. Also finding where they did live is very helpful because their family and friends may still be there.
Why do you need to know the city and state? If you tried to go to an Internet search engine site, maybe one that specialized in genealogy research and put in only a person’s name without the city and state you are not going to get any information. Why? Even in the United States you have to tell the site where this person is living. If you do not have that basic information, you are not going to get an answer. It is virtually impossible to locate a person if you do not have the city and the state where they are living.
Next week, we'll organize all our findings.
Do you know there are five top items you must have to find someone living in Mexico? Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Expert on 1st 100 years of Mexico Family History
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your Inbox? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
Finding out where they did live can be helpful if you do not know where they are living right now. Family genealogist know that having the city and state are two critical pieces of information needed to locate someone and learn more about them. Family genealogy research also includes looking at where a people is from to help identify other relatives who may still be living in the same city.
If someone has lived in Guadalajara and they came to the United States for, say, ten years, there is a very good possibility they may be going back to Guadalajara at some point. Also finding where they did live is very helpful because their family and friends may still be there.
Why do you need to know the city and state? If you tried to go to an Internet search engine site, maybe one that specialized in genealogy research and put in only a person’s name without the city and state you are not going to get any information. Why? Even in the United States you have to tell the site where this person is living. If you do not have that basic information, you are not going to get an answer. It is virtually impossible to locate a person if you do not have the city and the state where they are living.
Next week, we'll organize all our findings.
Do you know there are five top items you must have to find someone living in Mexico? Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Expert on 1st 100 years of Mexico Family History
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your Inbox? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Finding Someone In Mexico - Through Story Telling
Story telling is an incredible tool to get people to tell you the information you want. It will also give you an idea of who this person was and what they were doing and may lead you to other ideas.
A great way to get information is to get a person to tell you stories using questions like, “So how did you and my father meet?” or “What did he/she like to do during the weekends?” Engaging the people that you talk to in your family and circle of friends in stories is a great way to jog their memory. Sometimes with story telling they remember something they may have otherwise forgotten.
Here is a key. Talk to every relative you have. There is always someone in every family who knows a little bit about everyone. And it does not matter if they are your third cousin or they are four times removed. They could be an ex-husband, an ex-uncle. It does not matter. You would be amazed at how much information other people in the family have about your side of the family. You may think that your immediate family should know everything about the family, but that is not always true. I urge you to go talk to every possible relative.
Maybe they talked to someone from another group, such as a priest or teacher. Go after as many leads as you can. You are going to have to interview several people to get all the facts.
Ths and next weeks post are two key pieces of information that will go far in helping with your search.
Find out what the five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico. Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found!
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your In box? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
A great way to get information is to get a person to tell you stories using questions like, “So how did you and my father meet?” or “What did he/she like to do during the weekends?” Engaging the people that you talk to in your family and circle of friends in stories is a great way to jog their memory. Sometimes with story telling they remember something they may have otherwise forgotten.
Here is a key. Talk to every relative you have. There is always someone in every family who knows a little bit about everyone. And it does not matter if they are your third cousin or they are four times removed. They could be an ex-husband, an ex-uncle. It does not matter. You would be amazed at how much information other people in the family have about your side of the family. You may think that your immediate family should know everything about the family, but that is not always true. I urge you to go talk to every possible relative.
Maybe they talked to someone from another group, such as a priest or teacher. Go after as many leads as you can. You are going to have to interview several people to get all the facts.
Ths and next weeks post are two key pieces of information that will go far in helping with your search.
Find out what the five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico. Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found!
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your In box? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
#3 Want to find family in Mexico? What you need to get started
A challenge that people experience in trying to find someone living in Mexico is just not having enough information or not knowing where to get started gathering information. This post will give you the fundamentals you will need to gather information to find people in Mexico.
You've probably already done a lot of Mexico genealogy research. I’m sure you've tried many ways to find the information you need to find someone in Mexico, from searching the Internet to speaking to friends and family. You may have been searching online for hours and hours. You may have talked to relatives or friends of the person you are searching for, but you just have not gotten the information you need and are not able to find this person living in Mexico.
Let’s start with the fundamentals of what information you should be searching for.
Your first goal should be to have the complete name of the person you are looking for. Let’s use the name Juan Carlos Garcia Gonzalez as an example.If you have a friend who has a name like Juan Carlos, that is his name. In English we might separate out two names. Someone named Billy Bob may also be called Bob or Billy. However, in Mexico Juan Carlos is this person’s name. It’s not correct to call him Juan or to him Carlos. His name is Juan Carlos. Be aware of this because having the complete and full name is very important in your search and will help you to more quickly locate this person.
The complete name is not only their first name(s) but also both of their last names. In Spanish a person has two last names. The first last name in Spanish is the name of the father (for example: Garcia). Gonzalez is the second last name and this is the equivalent of our mother’s maiden name. By putting the two together and you have a complete name. Doing Mexico genealogy can often be easier because the two last names minimize the chance of accidentally researching someone else's family lineage.
You can also discover this information by talking to every relative this person has. Ask questions such as where did this person come from. Ask how they ended up in the United States. Ask where they went to school or where they vacationed as they were growing up. Different questions can help trigger memories and details that will help you find the information and the person you are looking for.
Saludos,
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Find Relatives In Mexico
Want to know the Top 3 Keys to Starting Your Mexico Family Genealogy? Go to our Facebook page and click the LIKE button. Then you only have to enter your name and email to get your audio copy of my interview with John Finch, former President of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society. You don't want to miss this information so go to our Facebook page now and get your free audio download.
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Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Finding Someone In Mexico - Does the Internet Work?
So you've searched the Internet and can't find the person you are looking for in Mexico. The problem with trying to find someone in Mexico by using the Internet is that very little of the information on individuals who are living in Mexico is digitized. Herein lays the problem. The information is not on the Internet. If you did an Internet search for Mexico, you would receive a lot of results, but a closer look at the results reveals that most of them have to do with New Mexico or Mexico, Missouri. The search results are not focused on the Country of Mexico but more on searching for people that live in the United States.
Marie Daly, director of the Research Library at the New England Historic Genealogical Society is quoted in Margaret Moen's How to be a Self-Sufficient Researcher as saying, “I’d say perhaps only 10 percent of the genealogical information out there is on the Web. But when people do genealogy research, they think that’s 100 percent, and they make a big error that way. Not everything is on the Web. And some of the things that are on the Web are erroneous.”
Even though you may spend a lot of time looking for this information, it may be in the wrong direction. If you have spent over an hour searching the Internet, stop. Why would I say this? Because most people after an hour have tapped their knowledge of how to search online. There is a science to searching online. After an hour most people have used up all of their resources. They have used up all of their knowledge on how to look for information. At that point most people are pretty much just surfing around, looking and hoping to find new information.
People may feel that if they keep searching, they will find that one site that has the information they are looking for. There is no one magic web site to help you locate someone living in Mexico. It is just not out there and this includes family genealogy sites.
If you are frustrated because you have spent a lot of time looking for someone, have tried free genealogy sites and nothing you have done has worked, you are finally in the right place. In the next few blogs, I am going to share with you information on what to do and how to do it. So don’t give up.
Take the first step to uncovering the five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico. Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your In box? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
Marie Daly, director of the Research Library at the New England Historic Genealogical Society is quoted in Margaret Moen's How to be a Self-Sufficient Researcher as saying, “I’d say perhaps only 10 percent of the genealogical information out there is on the Web. But when people do genealogy research, they think that’s 100 percent, and they make a big error that way. Not everything is on the Web. And some of the things that are on the Web are erroneous.”
Even though you may spend a lot of time looking for this information, it may be in the wrong direction. If you have spent over an hour searching the Internet, stop. Why would I say this? Because most people after an hour have tapped their knowledge of how to search online. There is a science to searching online. After an hour most people have used up all of their resources. They have used up all of their knowledge on how to look for information. At that point most people are pretty much just surfing around, looking and hoping to find new information.
People may feel that if they keep searching, they will find that one site that has the information they are looking for. There is no one magic web site to help you locate someone living in Mexico. It is just not out there and this includes family genealogy sites.
If you are frustrated because you have spent a lot of time looking for someone, have tried free genealogy sites and nothing you have done has worked, you are finally in the right place. In the next few blogs, I am going to share with you information on what to do and how to do it. So don’t give up.
Take the first step to uncovering the five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico. Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your In box? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Finding Someone In Mexico - The #1 Challenge
Are you frustrated because you have spent too much time looking for someone in Mexico and nothing you have done works? You’re not alone. Hours of research only ending in frustration is the #1 challenge when trying to find someone living in Mexico or trying to start your Mexico family genealogy research.
Breaking through the #1 Frustration Challenge
One of the most interesting challenges that I have come across in my research is frustration. People may feel as though there may be no hope in finding the person they are looking for. Maybe they are frustrated because they don’t know or speak the Spanish language. This can be especially upsetting for people who are doing their Mexican family genealogy and researching to find a mother or father living in Mexico.
Some of our clients have said their biggest problem is they do not speak Spanish or have never been to Mexico and have no idea where to start looking. Some tell us they have names and some information, but have not had any luck at all finding anybody. They feel lost and have given up on their Mexico family genealogy research. They are possibly frustrated because they may have spent hours on the Internet and have come up with nothing. This includes free family genealogy web sites.
Let’s talk about that for a minute. There's a good reason why a person doing family genealogy research for someone in Mexico has not found any information. Let’s start with the Internet. For most people, the Internet is an easy way to find people. Let’s face it, if you are trying to find someone in the United States, all you need to do is put in their name, city, state, and maybe their zip code.
There are many online search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or the Internet White Pages. If someone has any kind of web presence such as: owning a web site; have published articles; been in a newspaper; or even just have a residential listing that is online, they can easily be found through an online search just by plugging their information into a search engine. There is a lot of information on people who are living in the United States and there are many ways to look for them and it is very easy to find them--if they are living in the United States.
Next week . . . Does the Internet work for finding people living in Mexico?
We'll share with you the top five challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico? Subscribe now and get our FREE Special Report.
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your In box? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
Breaking through the #1 Frustration Challenge
One of the most interesting challenges that I have come across in my research is frustration. People may feel as though there may be no hope in finding the person they are looking for. Maybe they are frustrated because they don’t know or speak the Spanish language. This can be especially upsetting for people who are doing their Mexican family genealogy and researching to find a mother or father living in Mexico.
Some of our clients have said their biggest problem is they do not speak Spanish or have never been to Mexico and have no idea where to start looking. Some tell us they have names and some information, but have not had any luck at all finding anybody. They feel lost and have given up on their Mexico family genealogy research. They are possibly frustrated because they may have spent hours on the Internet and have come up with nothing. This includes free family genealogy web sites.
Let’s talk about that for a minute. There's a good reason why a person doing family genealogy research for someone in Mexico has not found any information. Let’s start with the Internet. For most people, the Internet is an easy way to find people. Let’s face it, if you are trying to find someone in the United States, all you need to do is put in their name, city, state, and maybe their zip code.
There are many online search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or the Internet White Pages. If someone has any kind of web presence such as: owning a web site; have published articles; been in a newspaper; or even just have a residential listing that is online, they can easily be found through an online search just by plugging their information into a search engine. There is a lot of information on people who are living in the United States and there are many ways to look for them and it is very easy to find them--if they are living in the United States.
Next week . . . Does the Internet work for finding people living in Mexico?
We'll share with you the top five challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico? Subscribe now and get our FREE Special Report.
Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your In box? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
Friday, August 17, 2007
PS. to "Nicknames Can Hurt You" article
I was reading through my blogs and this article caught my attention. With the large number of people contacting my company and using our information, we are always picking up better ideas to help people just like you.
First I recommend you read the article "Nicknames Can Hurt You". At one point I commented against using nicknames. Well, I'm going to change my position a little. People who are posting family information, especially to family genealogy web sites, should be listing the formal name of the person they are looking for. But they may also want to add a side note and mention that they believe the person had a nickname. I have noticed on a few records that people back in the late 1800s and early 1900s did sometimes list their nickname. One name might read Jose "Nacho" Rodriguez.
Patricia Diane Godinez, a 30 year veteran of Hispanic family genealogy research at the Bonita Family History Center, commented that the first 100 years of research can be the hardest. She was referring to those who want to start their family genealogy but because of divorce or other reasons have lost contact with their relatives in Mexico. For these people, any one piece of information could hold the key to their making contact with their Mexican relatives or friends.
I really started thinking about this when my wife was talking about some friends the other day. I was half listening as a husband might do from time to time but then she mentioned this one person by their nickname. I'm not even sure what his formal name is. I only know him as "Nacho". And if you mention "Nacho" around town, given the crowd, everyone knows who "Nacho" is.
So even though I tell clients to list formal names when posting on family genealogy web sites, I also now encourage people to make a comment and list the nickname. It's always possible that someone may have a record referring to a relative with the same nickname. If you're doing family genealogy research, you will want to verify all of this information with documents. But use all that you have, and you may find that person sooner than you expected.
Richard Villasana
Mexico Family History Expert
Family & Friends Found
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your In box? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
First I recommend you read the article "Nicknames Can Hurt You". At one point I commented against using nicknames. Well, I'm going to change my position a little. People who are posting family information, especially to family genealogy web sites, should be listing the formal name of the person they are looking for. But they may also want to add a side note and mention that they believe the person had a nickname. I have noticed on a few records that people back in the late 1800s and early 1900s did sometimes list their nickname. One name might read Jose "Nacho" Rodriguez.
Patricia Diane Godinez, a 30 year veteran of Hispanic family genealogy research at the Bonita Family History Center, commented that the first 100 years of research can be the hardest. She was referring to those who want to start their family genealogy but because of divorce or other reasons have lost contact with their relatives in Mexico. For these people, any one piece of information could hold the key to their making contact with their Mexican relatives or friends.
I really started thinking about this when my wife was talking about some friends the other day. I was half listening as a husband might do from time to time but then she mentioned this one person by their nickname. I'm not even sure what his formal name is. I only know him as "Nacho". And if you mention "Nacho" around town, given the crowd, everyone knows who "Nacho" is.
So even though I tell clients to list formal names when posting on family genealogy web sites, I also now encourage people to make a comment and list the nickname. It's always possible that someone may have a record referring to a relative with the same nickname. If you're doing family genealogy research, you will want to verify all of this information with documents. But use all that you have, and you may find that person sooner than you expected.
Richard Villasana
Mexico Family History Expert
Family & Friends Found
Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your In box? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.
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