11 Ways to Find Your Ancestors

Resources to aid in ancestor veneration

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Ancestral veneration can be practiced in a multitude of ways. Here are just a few suggested tools and resources one can use in ancestor work:

1. Build a family grimoire: Gather your family stories, your folklore, your recipes and traditions. Speak with the grandmothers, grandfathers, great aunts and uncles of your family. If you know your lineage, begin researching the lore your ancestors would have subscribed to. If you do not have access to your blood relatives, that is perfectly OK. You can begin building a personal grimoire based on the traditions that you practice, the meals you cook, and the folkways you believe in or practice. [Roger Horne’s Folk Witchcraft: A Guide to Lore, Land, & the Familiar Spirit for the Solitary Practitioner offers some great advice on how to go about this!]

2. Ancestry: Gather ancestral research about you and your family. If you are comfortable enough to do so, you can submit a DNA test to Ancestry’s website and see if you can find other relatives in the community. Be careful, you might learn something about yourself that you aren’t prepared or open to learning. Ancestry makes it possible to connect with relatives, to gather photographs, newspaper articles, and so much more. You can also upload your materials to the website, allowing others to save your submissions to their family trees. [I have found some of the coolest photographs of my relatives, and portraits drawings too!] Most public libraries have a limited subscription to Ancestry. If you can’t afford the expensive membership, you can access Ancestry from your public library for free (you must be physically in the library to access the site, usually).

3. Geni: This site is similar to Ancestry, with a less flashy interface and considerably cheaper. They don’t have their own DNA test, but you can transfer the results of your DNA from other websites. Genie is considerably cheaper than Ancestry, and provides you with access to all the same information resources.

4. MyTrueAncestry: If you’re interested in learning more about your ancient relatives, be sure to check out this resource. For a fee, MyTrueAncestry will compare your DNA results against the DNA results gathered from 85+ archaeological sites (i.e those with human remains). These sites are scattered throughout Europe and span 10,000 years of human history.

5. Find A Grave: This is a free database, full of cemeteries and tombstones galore. Their mission is to “help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present final disposition information as a virtual cemetery experience.” You can register as a volunteer and receive photo requests of headstones and tombs in your community. You can also be the researcher and discover final disposition data of your family members.

6. Historical Topo Map Explorer: Learn about the land that your ancestors once inhabited. ESRI’s historic topo map explorer has maps dating back to the 1870’s. (Available for U.S. Only)

7. Historic Map Works: This is another historic map resource, one that offers maps dating back to ancient times. You can’t download maps for free without a watermark, but you can at least screen cap a map or area of interest on a map for personal research.

8. Folklife festivals: Once you find the communities that your relatives once resided in, see if there are any folklife or heritage festivals hosted throughout the year. If so, then go to one! This is a great way to sample some of the traditional crafts, food, and music of your lineage.

9. Learn traditional crafts: Look for workshops, classes, or tutorials that can teach you about the trades your ancestors were involved in. These can be domestic crafts, food crafts, woodworking, textiles, etc. It’s best if you can find learning opportunities in areas your family once resided, since there are often times regional variations in how traditional crafts are made. If this is impossible, that’s OK. Learn what you can in whatever way you are able to. This is a great opportunity to reach out to your local library for support too!

10. Collect or re-create family recipes: Sometimes family recipes are not conducive to modern-day dietary restrictions or ideology. For example, I maintain a vegan lifestyle and I come from a family of farmers and meat market merchants. I asked my grandmother to prepare a cookbook for me, filled with family recipes that her parents and relatives used to make. Now, I am working on veganizing these meals to bring them into alignment with my personal ideology.

11. Make an Ancestor Altar: Find a shelf or table top in your home, and place photographs of your [deceased] loved ones upon the altar. Yes, you can even use photos of your favorite pets, because they’re part of the family too. Develop a routine to visit the altar on a daily or weekly basis, provide offerings of favorite beverages or foods. You can light a fragrant candle, or incense. Decorate the space with flowers or objects that remind you of the deceased. If you know your grandma loved coffee, pour her a mug. If you have a favorite dog or cat on the altar, leave them a few of their favorite treats. You want to keep the space tidy, and change out offerings on a regular basis so that nothing goes stale. If you want to make a daily routine, you could make things a little easier on yourself by offering a cup of fresh water on a daily basis. Instead of pouring the water down the drain each day, use it to water your plants. Never put any photos or objects affiliated with the living on your ancestral altar.