Linda Lawson grew up thinking she had only a few relatives. Her grandfather's family scattered when he was 8, after his father died and his mother abandoned five of the six children. Because Lawson's grand-father rarely discussed his family, she knew little about her own heritage.

Years later, when Lawson visited a Roots Web West Virginia Web site, she was surprised to find a message referencing the surname Hinzman — the maiden name of the woman who'd left her children so many years earlier. Although the posting was two years old, Lawson contacted the author, who e-mailed her back and introduced her to many "Internet cousins" — those distant relatives who share an ancestor several generations back. Two cousins sent her the first photos she'd ever seen of her great-grand-mother. "When I opened that e-mail," Lawson recalls, "I sat and cried."