Thank you for joining LostCousins!

We've spent months and months getting this site ready, but ultimately it's only you, the members, who can make it a success.

Why's that? Because the more people who join and list their ancestors, the easier it is to find users who share the same ancestors. Very roughly, if twice as many people join, there will be four times as many matches. If 10 times as many join, there will be 100 times more matches!

Hopefully we've made it really easy for you to recommend the site to others (do tell us if there's any way we could make it even easier). Your My Referrals page keeps track of which people have registered - which means that you can chase up anyone who hasn't quite got round to it yet!

Some members have been talking about the site on forums - that's another good way to grow the membership. Others are planning to talk about it the next time they visit their local family history society, or their local church. Most people are interested in hearing about something that's free, and because LostCousins helps bring families closer together it's likely to be of particular interest in these troubled times.

During our first few weeks of operation you may have noticed some changes to the site - these improvements have been made in response to comments from users. Please keep those suggestions coming!

FREE! Download our free ancestor chart

CHECKLIST

  1. Recommend the site to all your friends - almost every family has someone who has researched the family tree in the past.
  2. Invite your relatives to join - they'll be delighted to receive details of the ancestors that you both share.
  3. Don't just enter your direct ancestors - include everyone from the 1881 Census who is a blood relative.
  4. Remember that the number of ancestors doubles every generations, so you have 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great grandparents and so on.
  5. Send polite reminders if your friends and relatives haven't registered after a week. It's possible they might not have received the original email.