I want to know where I come from and if my ancestors did anything important?

Question:I was just wondering if there is a FREE service that I could use to look up my family. I know my father's entire family is from Italy and then they all moved to New York shortly after. But I just want to know what my ancestors did. I just want to see if anyone did anything important. I search my last name in google, but that wasn't too helpful. Does anyone know of anything i Can do?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I was just wondering if there is a FREE service that I could use to look up my family. I know my father's entire family is from Italy and then they all moved to New York shortly after. But I just want to know what my ancestors did. I just want to see if anyone did anything important. I search my last name in google, but that wasn't too helpful. Does anyone know of anything i Can do?

Start with yourself and work back, documenting as you do. Get as much info from living family as possible, particularly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you. What might seem to be insignificant story telling might turn out to be very significant. See if there are any old family bibles, Check for birth, baptismal, first communion, Confirmation, Marriage and Death certificates. Most of these have parent information, including mother's maiden name.

Check out your public library and see what all they have. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can use.
Ancestry.Com has lots of records and seems to be getting more all the time. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet.

Just don't take as absoute fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. The info is user submitted, very seldom documented or poorly documented.
Even if you see the same information repeatedly by many different submitters, that is no guarantee it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. Use the information as CLUES as to where to get the documentation.

Ancestry.Com has lots of immigration records. One night I was able to locate records for a person on their Italian ancestry. Not only did I locate her great grandmother but it had a copy of the original ship log showing all family members that came with her as well as a photo of the ship on which they came over.

I have a friend whose mother came from Calabria and father from Sicily. She has found lots of records on her immigrant ancestors at the Naitonal Archives in Washington. She said when you first go there you go through a lot of red tape signing up and getting a name tag. But once you get the name tag, you just show them your tag and you are in anytime you go back. They have volunteers there to help you. Apparently she found more on her family at the National Archives than a cousin did going to Italy.

Also Catholic church records can be helpful, Baptisms, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage and Death. These give parent information as well as mother's maiden name. Periodicially in our diocese the books are sent to the Chancery to be microfilmed.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has records on people all over the world, not just Mormons.
They are free to use. Just call them and find out their hours for the general public. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee.

I haven't had them ever to try and convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell. I haven't heard of them doing that to anyone else either.

I might add spending too much time searching your name can be very wasteful.
The same name can come from more than one national origin. Not everyone with the same name are related, even those of the same national origin. Also, you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents and 16 great great grandparents. When you get back that far, your surname is only 1/16th of what you are.

I have not found any free services for this. The best I could come up with is me and one of my cousins split the cost of one. We then just shared the log on name and password.

do you have any papers at all you could try ancerity .com

Really, what you are going to have to do is start from scratch. Start creating and building your family tree. Research each person. I have plenty of people in my tree who did important things, but not all are necessarily famous for what they did. Some were members of governing bodies, or judges, etc. Important stuff, but not famous. Others were famous, but not necessarily really important. Some were both. You are just going to have to find out from documented research who your ancestors were, and research each person. It is not all going to be free and easy either. But it is a ton of fun.

You are not stupid, but you are woefully ignorant.

Researching a family tree is work. People do that work (and all other work) for love or money. If your great-aunt has done it, and loves you, she will give you a copy of her work for free. If she has done it and doesn't love you, tough luck. You should have replied to those birthday cards and thanked her for those Christmas gifts.

If she hasn't done it, you can do the research yourself or hire someone.

I myself would like a FREE service that would paint my house, cut my lawn and cook five-course meals for me every night. Do you know any web sites for that? I'd be willing to settle for three-course meals if the portions were big.