The young associations offer us one of the best opportunities to study the properties of young stellar and sub-stellar objects and directly image planets thanks to their proximity (<200pc) and age (5-150Myr). However, many previous works have been limited to identifying the brighter, more active members (1Msun) due to photometric survey sensitivities limiting the detections of lower-mass objects. We search the field of view of 542 previously identified members of the young associations to identify wide / extremely wide (1000-100,000au in physical separation) companions. Methods. We have combined 2MASS near-infrared photometry (J, H, K) with proper motion values (from UCAC4, PPMXL, NOMAD) to identify companions in the field of view of known members. We collated further photometry and spectroscopy from the literature and conducted our own high-resolution spectroscopic observations for a sub-sample of candidate members. This complementary information allowed us to assess the efficiency of our method. We identified 84 targets (45:0.2-1.3M_{sun}, 17:0.08-0.2M{sun}, 22:<0.08M{sun}_) in our analysis, 10 of which have been identified from spectroscopic analysis in previous young association works. For 33 of these 84 we were able to further assess their membership using a variety of properties (X-ray emission, UV excess, H{alpha}, lithium and KI equivalent widths, radial velocities, and CaH indices). We derive a success rate of 76-88% for this technique based on the consistency of these properties. Once confirmed, the targets identified in this work would significantly improve our knowledge of the lower-mass end of the young associations. Additionally, these targets would make an ideal new sample for the identification and study of planets around nearby young stars. Given the predicted sub-stellar mass of the majority of these new candidate members and their proximity, high-contrast imaging techniques would facilitate the search for new low-mass planets.

Cone search capability for table J/A+A/590/A13/appene (Properties of new candidate members (full table4))

Cone search capability for table J/A+A/590/A13/tabled1 (Basic properties of the original used in this work)