Have Any Black Sheep in Your Family Tree?

If you research your ancestry long enough, chances are you will come across at least one black sheep of the family. They may have been imprisoned or even executed for a crime, been committed to an insane asylum or led lawmakers on a merry chase looting the high seas. It's not unusual to run into a brick wall with these individuals since many families would pretend the person didn't exist or make up a tamer story to cover up why the person no longer lived with them.

Black Sheep Ancestors can help you uncover the black sheep in your family tree. It offers a number of free genealogy resources from the USA, Canada and United Kingdom. There are even some international records available.

In the USA section, you can use the searches for prisons & convicts, outlaw & criminal ancestors, court records, executions or insane asylums. The Canada section offers searches of prisons & convicts, black sheep ancestors, court records and executions. The UK section lets you search prisons & convicts, outlaw & criminal ancestors, court records and executions. The International page has a pirates & buccaneers search.