The Forgotten Code · Deduction game

Find the Ancestor

Twelve suspects. One ancestor. Only evidence wins.

★★★★★  Loved by game-night crews and family historians

✦ 15 complete cases in three levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

✦ 180 suspect cards and 500+ evidence and archive cards

✦ 15 sealed solutions, each with the ancestor's portrait and true story

✦ Core Kit: illustrated rules, quick-reference cards, Archivist guide

✦ A Family Album to collect every ancestor you find

✦ 2–5 rival players, plus Solo and Co-op modes

✦ 20–60 minutes a case, from age 12, no genealogy knowledge needed

✦ A4 and US Letter, Color and Low-ink versions

€29,99

15

cases to solve

2–5

rival players

12

faces on the table

1

true ancestor

Every case begins with a letter

Somebody lost a woman two hundred years ago

A stranger writes to you. Somewhere in the hill country, two centuries back, lived a woman no one in her family can trace. Twelve people could be the answer.

You and your rivals open the same archive: censuses, chapel registers, old newspapers, family letters. Each of you already holds documents the others haven't seen.

Some family stories are true. Some are not. The first to name the ancestor and prove it wins.

How a case plays

From a stranger's letter to a face in the dark

Learn it in ten minutes. Argue about it all night. Here is one game night, step by step.

Step 01

A letter arrives

Every case opens with a letter from a client who has hit a brick wall: a lost ancestor, a family legend, a handful of names and places. Read it aloud, and the hunt begins.

Listen closely. Every detail in the letter is a clue, and some of them are wrong.

Step 02

Twelve suspects hit the table

Lay out twelve candidate cards. Each one shows when she was born, her husband's trade, her chapel and her county. One of them is the client's ancestor. The other eleven have to go.

Every player also holds secret documents nobody else has seen.

Step 03

Dig, question, bluff

On your turn, search the archive, question a rival or chase a lead into the sealed records. Every census, register and letter rules someone out, and you track it all on your Research Sheet. Share too much and a rival gets there first.

Watch the seals: a Record beats a family story every time.

Step 04

Accuse, prove it, meet her

When you think you know, name her and lay down three documents as proof. Get it right and you break the seal: her portrait, her real name and the story the family got wrong. Get it wrong and you are out of the race.

The first to prove it wins. Being right is not enough.

The twist that makes it different

Family stories lie. Records don't.

Every document carries a seal that tells you how far you can trust it. Read the seals right and you'll beat the table.

●

Record

Rules out on its own

Original registers, censuses, burial entries. The strongest evidence on the table.

◐

Derived

Loses to a Record

Indexes, transcripts, obituaries, directories. Useful, but copied by someone, somewhere.

○

Hearsay

Never proves anything alone

Family letters, Bibles, online trees. They point the way, and sometimes they point the wrong way.

Every person and document in the game is invented. The method is real: it's how genealogists work every day.

Try a mini-case

Can you find her in 60 seconds?

Four suspects. Four documents. One of them is misleading you. Read the seals, rule the others out, then check your answer.

The suspects

Calder County

Agnes Wren

BORN  1820–24

HUSBAND  Weaver

CHAPEL  Methodist

Ashford County

Lydia Marsh

BORN  1825–29

HUSBAND  Miller

CHAPEL  Methodist

Calder County

Clara Thorne

BORN  1825–29

HUSBAND  Weaver

CHAPEL  Methodist

Calder County

Edith Pryce

BORN  1820–24

HUSBAND  Weaver

CHAPEL  Baptist

The documents

● Record

1851 Census

“Calder County. Listed as the wife of a weaver.”

● Record

Chapel register

“Baptised at the Methodist chapel, Calder.”

○ Hearsay

Family letter

“Grandmother always said she was born in 1827.”

◐ Derived

Burial index

“Died 1891, aged 69.”
Reveal the answer

It's Agnes Wren.

The census rules out Lydia Marsh, who lived in Ashford and married a miller. The chapel register rules out Edith Pryce, a Baptist. The burial index puts the birth around 1822, which rules out Clara Thorne.

The family letter pointed straight at Clara, but Hearsay can never prove anything on its own. In the real game the documents are split between rivals, and nobody shows you theirs.

15 cases · 180 suspects · 500+ documents

What's inside

The Complete Casebook

15 cases in three levels, each one adding a twist of its own

The Core Kit: illustrated rules, quick-reference cards, Archivist and Solo/Co-op modes

For every case: 12 candidate cards, evidence and archive cards, a Research Sheet and the client's letter

A sealed solution with the ancestor's portrait and the true story

A Family Album to collect every ancestor you find

A4 and US Letter, in Color and Low-ink versions

Three levels

Start easy. End brilliant.

Every case is played once, and every case teaches you something the next one will test.

Beginner · Cases 1–5

Learn the archive

Every card tells you who it rules out. Perfect for a first game night with friends or family.

20–30 minutes

Intermediate · Cases 6–10

Read between the lines

Fewer hints, more traps. Each case brings a new rule: witnesses, name variants, records in a different hand.

30–45 minutes

Advanced · Cases 11–15

Prove it the hard way

No hints at all. Burned archives, conflicting records and a three-generation finale.

45–60 minutes

Made for

Anyone who loves a good mystery

✦

Game nights

A fresh deduction game for 2–5 friends, with a real winner.

✦

Families

From age 12. Grandparents finally get to show off.

✦

Family historians

Real research methods, turned into a game you can share.

✦

Classrooms and clubs

Archivist mode lets one person run the game for a group.

What players say

Reviews

★★★★★  Loved by game-night crews and family historians

A different kind of game night

★★★★★

We all had a different theory, and nobody wanted to show their best evidence. Comparing notes and trying to prove each other wrong was the best part of the evening.

Julia S.

Everyone had a theory

★★★★★

We played as a family, and everyone found something different in the documents. You don’t need to know genealogy to join in...just be willing to question your first guess.

Tim L.

I trusted the wrong story

★★★★★

I was convinced I’d found the answer until a record contradicted the family story. Having to rethink my theory made the mystery much more interesting than simply collecting clues.

MArk k.

A familiar research challenge

★★★★★

As someone who enjoys family history, I liked the difference between an original record, a transcript and a family story. It gave us something more interesting to discuss than whose guess sounded best.

Ella R.

Printed and Played at the table

★★★★★

We used our home printer and cut the cards ourselves. Having the candidates laid out beside the Research Sheet made it easy to keep track of the evidence as we played.

FRED N.

The explanation was worth reading

★★★★★

Opening the solution wasn’t just about seeing who was right. Reading how the evidence fitted together helped us understand where our theories had gone wrong, without leaving the mystery unexplained.

ROBERT O.

All 15 cases. One Casebook.

Get the Complete Casebook

★★★★★  Loved by game-night crews and family historians

✦ 15 complete cases in three levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

✦ 180 suspect cards and 500+ evidence and archive cards

✦ 15 sealed solutions, each with the ancestor's portrait and true story

✦ Core Kit: illustrated rules, quick-reference cards, Archivist guide

✦ A Family Album to collect every ancestor you find

✦ 2–5 rival players, plus Solo and Co-op modes

✦ 20–60 minutes a case, from age 12, no genealogy knowledge needed

✦ A4 and US Letter, Color and Low-ink versions

€29,99

Questions

Before you play
Do I need to know anything about genealogy?

No. The rules explain everything in about ten minutes. If you love genealogy, you'll recognise the method, and enjoy it even more.

How do I receive it? Is it a physical product?

It's an instant PDF download: the files are yours right after checkout, in A4 and US Letter, Color and Low-ink. Print them at home or at a copy shop, cut the cards and play the same evening. Nothing is shipped, and you keep lifetime access.

How many people can play?

2 to 5 players, best with 3 or 4. There's also a Solo and Co-op mode, and an Archivist mode where one person runs the game for a group.

How long does a case take?

Beginner cases take 20–30 minutes, Intermediate 30–45 and Advanced 45–60.

Can I replay a case?

Each case is solved once, like an escape room. That's why the Casebook includes 15 of them. You can print as many copies as you need to play with different groups.

What do I need to print it?

A home printer and normal paper are enough. Card stock of 160–250 gsm makes the cards feel great. A Low-ink version is included.

Who we are

We're The Forgotten Code

We turn the way genealogists really work into games you play around a table. Censuses, chapel registers, old newspapers, family letters, and the family legends that lead you the wrong way.

Every name and every document is invented. The method is real: rule people out, weigh every source, and give a forgotten person back her name. We built Find the Ancestor for that moment, when the right record clicks into place.

✦

A real method

Records, hearsay and derived sources work the way they do in real research.

✦

Invented lives

Every family, village and letter was written from scratch for the game.

✦

Made for the table

Print it, gather your rivals and argue about the evidence all night.

Happy hunting,
The Forgotten Code

Contact us

Stuck on something? Write to us.

A question about printing, a rule you're not sure about, or your order: send us a message and we'll reply by email.

Please don't ask us for the solution. Break the seal instead.

Thanks! Your message is on its way. We'll reply by email.

Name

Email

Message

Every person, family and document in Find the Ancestor is invented. For personal and household use.