You can do this by searching for records for the sibling of the oldest ancestor you've found and then looking through the sibling's records to find their parents.

Discover your family history by searching your ancestor's name on Ancestry®, the leading online resource for genealogy research. Start your person search here.

Search First & Middle Name (s) Last Name Place your ancestor might have lived Birth Year Show more options

The higher a result is in the list of search results, the more likely it is to be about your ancestor, while lower results may be less relevant or less likely to be about your ancestor.

That chain of parents and children are your ancestors. This means that not every older relative is your ancestor. For example, your aunts and uncles are your relatives but not your ancestors, because you …

Ancestry Hints® connects you to more stories. Once you start your tree, Ancestry® will begin to comb through our collections and add possible details and discoveries to the tree. These Ancestry Hints® …

Maps can help you find cemeteries near your ancestor’s residence. If you’re not lucky enough to have a death certificate that lists the name of the cemetery, map out the cemeteries near where your relative …

Pinpoint your ancestor’s location from the census on a map, and then look for churches, cemeteries, and other places where your ancestor may have left records.

Table 1 shows how likely you will inherit DNA from a distant ancestor. The more generations that separate you and the ancestor, the more likely you did not inherit any of their DNA.

Pinpoint your ancestor’s location from the census on a map, and then look for churches, cemeteries, and other places where your ancestor may have left records.