I know pretty much nothing about the ancestoral origins of my family. Is there a

Question:Is there a FREE website I can go to find out the source of my family's name?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Is there a FREE website I can go to find out the source of my family's name?

Build your family tree on line.
You can use a paid site like:
http://www.ancestry.com/

OR You can do this for free on:

http://www.tribalpages.com/

Start with yourself, and then attach living family members.
Find out all you can about you family from living members, then attach it to your tree.
Now it is time to look for historical records and attach the info to your tree:

It is ALL about census records, and other historical records!

You might get lucky and others may have done some work on your family tree. Google family members names i.e. "Mary Smith" + "family tree"

Free sites:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=27...

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/

http://www.cyndislist.com/

http://www.findagrave.com/

Genealogy message board:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/messageboards/new...

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.as...

http://boards.ancestry.com/

http://www.gensource.com/common/search...

http://messages.yahoo.com/yahoo/Family...

http://genforum.genealogy.com/

http://www.genealogyforum.com/messages...

http://www.progenealogists.com/message...

http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us...

http://boards.rootsweb.com/

ECT.
The time may come when you want more information than you can find for free. When this happens you can back up your "tribalpage" tree to your computer on a "GEDCOM" file
you can then go to (I think it is the best subscription site)

http://www.ancestry.com/

Upload your "GEDCOM" file
and start to work!
You might need to make a few adjustments to your tree to make it look better.

try www.ancestry.com the give you a free trial of like 30 days i think but i found out soso much about my self in that amount of time.
check it out!

Your family name is normally that of your father (mom is another name by birth). You have 4 grandparents, each of them having a different name (one is the name you now use). 8 gr grandparents.
Ok.. so the ancestoral origins of you/ your family, involves MANY names, not just your father's. His surname may have come from <fill in the blank) some 400 yrs ago.. but that tells you zilch about the ancestors and their lives, between now and way back then.
You can look up where a surname comes from (which is NOT always just one place), or you can research your ANCESTORS, and where all of them lived/ died, etc.
Two different topics, really.

This is one of Ancestry's free ones:

http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/de...
Surname meanings and origins, one of Ancestry's free pages.

You asked two questions - the source of your father's surname and the ancestral origins of your family. The page above will tell you the origins of his surname. Note that he may not be what it says, especially if he is an African-American.

You could be 15/16ths Chinese, Cherokee or Swedish and have a Polish last name.

Try this website, familysearch.org. It is actually one of the largest, if not the largest free data base.

There are lots of websites with family trees.
Some of your family lines might be on there and some not, or maybe none of your family lines are on the web.

HOwever, you cannot take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. The information is subscriber submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented. Even when you see the same information repeatedly by many different subscribers that is no guarantee at all that it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying.

Your family name alone won't tell you your origins. The same surname can come from more than one nationality. Also, not everyone with the same surname are necessarily related or shares ancestors, even those of the same national origin.

If you ever want to trace your family history, there are lots of good people on this board that can give you some great tips and advise. Just ask.

I haven't tried this yet, just found out that most libraries have an Ancestry.com account, and a Heritage Quest account. With your library card you can access both. You have to personally go to the library and use their computer to access the Ancestry.com, Heritage Quest is access-able thru your home computer, but you have to log in thru your library website to access.
Susan Baker-granddaughter of Elsie Alice Webb West