I was reading a news letter this past spring, and came across a website I had not seen nor heard of before: LostCousins (www.lostcousins.com). I eagerly went to explore the site and create an account.
LostCousins is a genealogy website that helps individuals find living relatives who share their ancestors. By entering relatives recorded in selected US, Canadian, British, and/or Irish Censuses, users can search for “lost cousins” and connect with them. The site emphasizes accuracy and confidentiality. LostCousins provides a platform for sharing family photos, stories, and collaborating on future research. Additionally, the site encourages users to continuously update information about their ancestors to increase the chances of finding more relatives.
The website was developed in 2003 by Peter Calver, who still runs the site single-handedly today. There are over 90,000 registered members of LostCousins. As per the website,
“Our Goal - bringing cousins together. LostCousins is about bringing people together, not just people who share an interest in family history, but people with a shared interest in the same families, people who share the same DNA.”
To use LostCousins, users need to enter details of their relatives from selected censuses: (US, Canadian, British, Scottish, and/or Irish). The website then automatically matches users with other members who have entered the same ancestors.
The matching process is entirely automatic - users just need to enter their relatives and click the "Search" button. LostCousins will then show any matches, highlighting the relatives they share with a check mark.
Once a match is found, initial contact is made through the LostCousins site. Only when both members agree will they be able to see each other's names and contact information. This maintains privacy and confidentiality.
LostCousins emphasizes that entering relatives from the branches of your family tree, not just your direct line, is key to finding "lost cousins". This increases the chances of making connections.
Registering and searching for living relatives on LostCousins is free, but a subscription is required to make initial contact with a matched cousin. The subscription is £10 (or approx. $13.00 USD*) annually.
After entering my family members (especially the ones from my U.K. branch!), I was rewarded with two matches. One I had already been in contact with, since they appeared as a DNA match to me on FTDNA. The other I have not yet heard back from.
It was a good exercise, and as I accumulate more records of relatives that appear on those specified censuses, I will continue to add them to the list. I currently have 23 family units posted there, and you never know when a new cousin will add their extended family! It’s definitely a site to keep checking back on occasionally to see if there are any new matches!
Have you submitted your family information to LostCousins? If so, what sort of results have you had? Let me know in the comments!
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*Conversion rate as of July 14, 2024.