Family history can be a puzzle, with different family members each holding a different puzzle piece. Sometimes a long lost family member will have photos, or know the location of an ancestor's grave or simply have an interesting story to tell about some aspect of the family.

But many families lose track of each other as time passes due to immigration, a family squabble or whatever. But nowadays technology makes it very easy to reconnect with people on the opposite side of the globe.

Here are some tips for using technology to reconnect with long lost family members.

1. Before going high-tech, try the low-tech approach. Talk to the family members you know to gain clues about the family. Check through any old family Bibles. In the past, people often noted important family events like births and deaths in the family Bible. Check through old family correspondence for names and addresses of family members that might be attached.

2. Google the names of your ancestors. Try first and surname, and then try with the middle name included between quotation marks. "John Richard Smith" and "Bermuda" for example. This may pick up anyone else who has posted information on the web about that ancestor. Some people have put up websites about their family history.

3.Obituaries can contain a wealth of information about the various generations in a family. And many newspapers and memorial websites in the United States now post obituaries online. If the person died fairly recently try to figure out what the local newspaper would be for the town your ancestor died in. Then check that newspaper website for an archive section. Unfortunately, many newspapers still don't go back very far, but large newspapers like theThe New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Times have searchable archives going back to the early 1800s.

4. If your ancestor died in the United States after about 1960, you can try searching for them under the Social Security Death Index or SSDI. This is available on the web on a number of different websites for free. Try http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ . In some states you can request a death certificate, for a fee, that will include information about the next of kin and their address.

5. Passenger records are a great place to find information about ancestors, and sometimes contain addresses and next of kin. Don't forget to try going forward to the next page in the passenger record. Sometimes the record carries out over more than one page. (And sometimes it does not). See www.ellisislandrecords.org and or www.theshipslist.com .

6. One brick wall desperation idea that can have surprising success is to simply find a telephone book and look up people with your surname in the area your family members settled. This works particularly well if they have an unusual surname, but not so well if they had a common name like Smith, Jones or DeSilva. Telephone books to many places are now online with some e-digging. You can also try searching for people on Facebook with a particular surname.

7. Free websites such as www.rootsweb.com, www.genealogy.com and www.family search.org include information, family trees and messages boards on surnames and locations that can help. There are also many fee-based genealogy sites most especially www.ancestry.com. A good paid site for British connections is www.genesreunited.com .

8. Check out websites devoted to Bermuda genealogy such as www.josephsimmons.com and www.bermudianconnection.com .