Making a family history connection is like pushing over a domino—it leads to another connection, which leads to another connection, and so forth.

That’s why we recommend members share their stories in as many ways as possible—with family and friends, through message boards on our site, or through the newest set of Member Connect tools we’ve released to help you figure out who else is researching your ancestors.

A great example of one connection facilitating another happened to Ancestry.com member Cary Christopher. 

After Cary discovered that his grandfather—rumored to be a German soldier during WWI—was actually a U.S. naval hero, we featured his story in a video on our site.

An old friend who had served in the Navy with Cary saw the commercial and contacted us, wanting to get in touch with his former friend.

We took down Owen’s information and contacted Cary with it. Cary was ecstatic.

The two men had served together in the Navy 34 years before, where Cary was a yeoman, or typist, and Owen was an illustrator. Cary contacted Owen and the two spent several hours on the phone, sharing memories.

“There’s a connection that you have with shipmates that you don’t have with anybody else in society. To reconnect with Cary after all these years is just beyond words,” said Owen.

Since their initial reunion, the two former friends have stayed in touch, sharing photos and stories via email, and they hope to get together sometime next fall or winter for a face-to-face reunion.

You may not get a chance to showcase your family history find in a video on Ancestry.com, but there are certainly other ways you can get your story noticed and make the kinds of connections and breakthroughs that you’ll remember for a lifetime:

1. Create an online family tree

Creating an online family tree is one of the best ways to meet other Ancestry.com members, and maybe even extended family members, researching your family.

Once your tree is on Ancestry.com other people can discover the names you’ve entered and contact you anonymously if they see a family member they recognize.

We also suggest you make your tree public, which makes it easier for others to find your information and contact you.

Don’t worry—your personal information is hidden, only you can make changes to your tree and any data that you have in your tree on living people is hidden.

2. Utilize our new Member Connect features

A couple months ago we released a number of features specifically designed to help you discover who else was researching your family members. You can also be notified when they attach a record, photo or story to a shared ancestor.

Learn how to use Member Connect here.

3. Update your Ancestry.com profile page

Your profile page is where you tell other members of the Ancestry.com community more about you, including who, where and what time periods you’re researching. By keeping your research interests up-to-date on your Ancestry.com profile page, you help other members learn more about you and whether or not you can help one another out.

To get to your Profile Page, click the “My Account” link in the top, right-hand corner of the homepage; then, click “Edit your profile.”

4. Post a message on the message boards 

Every week we hear a new story of someone who’s connected with a long-lost relative through the message boards.

We have hundreds of message boards dealing with different surnames, localities and other family history topics (locating a cemetery, doing adoption research, and so forth). Find the right place to post your family information and send your message out to be discovered.

5. Share, share, share . . .

Share your family history as much as possible. Tell your family about your discoveries, invite them to view your tree, email them a copy of a census record for your grandfather, share your latest family history photo book or family tree poster. Do whatever you can to get your story out there and heard. The more you start talking the more you’ll find out and the more connections you’re bound to make.

Special Note: Some of the items Cary was able to share with Owen included some scanned pages of their Navy cruise book, which were like yearbooks kept by many of the Navy ships.

In honor of Veterans Day this month, Ancestry.com has scanned more than 600 Navy cruise books from the 1950s on.

These books are a treasure trove for anyone who served in the Navy—plus anyone searching out an ancestor who served in the Navy. You can find photos of the crew and ship, descriptions of different operations and other snippets of what life was like on tour aboard a particular ship.
 
 
 
Owen Stiles (red hair and ball cap) and Cary Christopher (to his right) playing cards during their naval tour together. Cary was able to share photos like these with his friend Owen after connecting through Ancestry.com.  
 
Page from Navy Cruise Book, showing Cary Christopher as a young man (third row down, furthest on the left).