Heritage Album

How to find out your family heritage?

How can I find out my family's heritage? I want to know where I come from, from both of my parent's sides of the family. How do you use Ancestry.com? I submitted the names of my parents and myself almost three months ago..nothing! Can anyone offer any advice as to using Ancestry.com or other means of discovering my true heritage? I think I might be part Irish but really want to know for sure.

Public Comments

1. What I would first do would type my last name on the internet. Then check the library. And if still nothing comes up, ask your parents
2. I'm a little familiar with Ancestry.com You have to get a subscription first before you start researching. To get started: First you type your ancestor's first name, last name, date of birth, and date of death. If you don't know some of the information, you can always leave it out. If you don't know what year they were born, for example, you can always leave it out. Second: When you enter the name, you will get a listing of census records, birth records, etc. Search them to see if your ancestor is listed in the records. I've never heard of anybody submitting names before, but this is how I look up names. Your library may have a free version called Ancestry Library Edition. You might want to ask about it at your library. For free, you can create a family tree online, and put in all the info you have learned in it. Hope this helps!
3. Okay, Jeremy, living people are hard to find on genealogy sites. The reason why it is considered an invasion of privacy and can lead to identity theft. Also, try and understand what you should be looking for in Ancestry.Com or any genealogy website, free or not free. You should first look for their excellent original source records not necessarily family trees. Information in family trees on ANY website you must view with caution. The only way any of your family will be in them is if some distant cousin or someone who married into your family some place alone the line has submitted the family tree. They are not submitted by some expert working for the website but by folks like you and me. There are errors. You will see different information on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see repeatedly the absolute same information on the same people from different subscribers. That is no proof at all it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. Most of the online family trees are not documented or poorly documented. You should always look for documentation whether it is in an online family tree or in a published book. The information in the family trees can be useful as clues as to where to get the documentation. The value of Ancestry.Com is that they have more records online than any other genealogy website. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have U.K. censuses through 1901. They have military, immigration,land and other records. They have indexes to vital records(birth,marriage and death) for most of the U.S. states. Now, no way are all records online, but for the ones that are it can save you money in the long run. You won't have to travel all over the country to courthouses, state libraries, National Archives offices getting records. They have transcribed the records but you can also view the original images. There are errors in their transcriptions, particularly censuses. When you view the originals, you will have pity on the transcribers. Often times the handwriting is difficult to read. The pages are very faint and sometimes the census taker got ink all over the page. If you want to set your tree up in their Public Member Tree or Private Member Tree, they will let you know if they have records on people in your tree, but make sure the records is actually on the same person. They will also notify you of information in One World Tree they have on your people. Be careful. The information again is from subscriber submitted family trees. Don't automaticaly add people to your tree because what they show is descendants of that person you don't have, not without verifying. You don't want to just get a lot of names in your tree but have a good documented family tree on everything you have.
4. I think that DNA testing is the only way to know your true ancestry. there is a test called ancestry by DNA, it will show you the percentage of the four most common races in your DNA.
5. My advice is to do a lot of research. I found info that neither I or my family even knew... I agree with the other guy, use a couple search engines and look up your last name. You will be surprised the info other already have & are willing to share. I met a man who linked his tree to mine and had went clear back to 1100A.D. Scotland, talk about hitting the jackpot. It's a lot of work but it is so worth it, I've also gotten to meet cousins online who I didn't even know existed... Good Luck! Have Fun!!! Gen-Circles: http://www.gencircles.com/ GenForum: Here you can search by last name County, State, Country. and read this posted by others with the last name of person you are asking about and can all search by full names and also post your own inquires,,, http://www.genforum.genealogy.com/ this is an Amish type site, but they have everyone... http://www.familysearch.org/
6. go to library
7. Do a search on the web, everyone has a cousin that they haven't seen in years who has done some of the research already. in a search engine type in (your last name)+genealogy you can also try (your last name)+family Good Luck