Contact others with common interests Use newsgroups and bulletin boards to list your interests and make contact with others. Newsgroups and bulletin boards are where people leave public messages in hopes that someone else will read and answer their request. The same concept, when applied to the Internet, is called newsgroups. There are over 13,000 newsgroups, several of which are devoted to genealogy. Use family history society periodicals and member's interest lists.
Many societies publish lists of who is researching what name.
Check out the societies for the area your ancestors came from and you may find a society member listed for an ancestor's family name. Select a specific individual in your ancestry to learn more about. You need to know at least a name, the area he or she was from, and an approximate time period. It's important to pick an ancestor about whom you have some information, so that you have a starting point. Successful researchers first do their homework.