Anyone know how I can find out my ancestors and ethic make-up online and for free?

Question

I want to know what percent english, german, irish, whatever, etc. I am. I want to know this for free, preferably on the internet. I am also trying to avoid registering an address/credit card if possible. All they should need is my last name right?

Answer 1

Which do you want first, online, or free?

Free is at home, ask your living ancestors for all they can tell you of their parents and grandparents, full names, places and dates of births, marriages and deaths.

Free meaing someone else pays means your public library, and the local LDS family history center. Maybe either or both those can provide you with access to census images which you will need.

A few online sites you can't do without: rootsweb.com, ancestry.com's free resources (most aren't), & familysearch.org.

Answer 2

I will start with the last part: No, you last name is not all they need. It is meaningless. So far, I have traced my ancestry to every country in Europe, several in the middle east, the Orient, Africa, and many islands, such as Jamaica, Greenland and the Canary Islands. So, while a surname may suggest a particular ethnic background, it can only provide a start.
If you wanted to figure out your percentage of English, German, Irish, whatever, etc. you are, you would need to go back 100 generations or more. 36 generations ago, it would have taken 32,359,738,368 persons at THAT ONE GENERATION to produce you; from 36 generations ago till now would be double that number. [Human population is currently about 6,700,000,000: that means that your ancestors, my ancestors, every one's ancestors married first cousins, uncles married nieces, in the case of Roman emperors and others, brothers married sisters, sons married mothers...It is fact!] So, you would need a mighty powerful computer to even begin.
Or, you can contact Family DNA, take a culture, get a report and get a close approimation of what percent you are for each group. Right now it is virtually impossible: contrary to what I was taught in public school, even ancient peoples moved around a lot. In my case, there is one generation where the husband was Spanish, the wife French; the next generation, it was the opposite. This continued for about 20 generations! Descendants of Charlemagne would have most countries of Europe involved, as his sons, grandsons, etc., spread out over much of Europe to rule.
Good luck.

Answer 3

Email me your last name I will run it through Ancestry.com for you. It well give me the countries of origin. [e-mail]

"where is my family from" in the Subject line

Or you can start a family tree on:

http://tribalpages.com

Once you do you can cross check information with other people.

You can also search the web for say your grandparents name They might already be on some one elses tree. Thats how I started out, but now I am soooo hooked I pay for Ancestry.com It's the best payed site.

You can also get a "visa gift card" and pay for a subcription that way. You only have to use a real Email address when you sighn up. You can use an old home address and phone number.... they don't check.

Answer 4

Beware of coat of arms peddlers. There are no laws in the United States regardling heraldry and there are companies that will sell you one based solely on your surname without documented proof that you are entitled to it.

Coats of arms were granted to individuals.
Many coats of arms have the same surname but not everyone with that surname is any way related to any of those that were granted one, much less be a direct descendant.

A person is free to display one if they wish but it is like putting up a picture of a famous person with their surname and claiming him as their ancestor whether they know he is or not. Not everyone with the same surname comes from the same root.

It is not illegal but it is very very dishonest.

Information in family trees on any website must be taken as clues as to where the look not as fact, as most of the information is not documented. Even if you see the same information over and over by different submitters, a lot of copying is being done.
That is poor family history. If you have been told by someone that you can find your family on line, that is not necessarily true. Those who think they have and have not verified the information, just might also be fooled. Even if you see the same information over and over by different submitters, a lot of copying is being done.

Ancestry.Com has the most records and is obtaining more all the time. However, the same applies to the family trees submitted,
they must be verified. There are errors in those family trees and the One World Tree is really a hash.

Rootsweb's World Connect has the same family tree information as Ancestry.Com's
Ancestry World Tree.

Now, if you have a genealogical section of your public library check it out. Find out what they have for you. They also might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com that you can utilize.

A LDS Data Center at a Mormon Church has lots of records on people all over the world. They are very nice and helpful, and I have never had one come ringing my doorbell because I availed myself of their services.

Website should be used as a supplement to real research.

You should start with your parents and work back. Work on one family line and if you come to a brickwall, put it aside and work on another.

Get as much information from family as possible, particularly senior members. Even if they are a little feeble, they can have a wealth of information. Tape them if they will let you. What might seem to be insignificant ramblings and story telling might turn out to be very significant. We old folks like to tell the younguns about old timey.

But don't expect to find your family tree on line and if you do don't expect every thing you see to be accurate.

Answer 5

The best free sites I know of are the following:
www.familysearch.org (have listings all over the world, some information dating back at least to the 11th century, as I found when researching my Mom's ancestry)
www.cyndislist.com (very good and a lot of data bases)
www.rootsweb.com (some data bases here require purchase of software, but it's primarily free)
www.genealogy.com and its forum site www.genforum.genealogy.com

Try typing in free genealogy sites in a search engine and it will lists dozens of others, including the national archives of both England and Ireland.

Answer 6

There is no easy way to do this--you will have to research your family back one generation at a time. First, talk to your parents and grandparents and other family members to gather as much information as you can--names, dates, places, etc. Then when you have information farther back on your family, here are a few resources for you to use:

http://www.familysearch.org - Probably the best free online resource.

http://www.ancestry.com is one of the best but has a hefty subscription fee (for most of its databases).

Also, you can check the surname message boards for his surname at:

http://genforum.genealogy.com
http://boards.ancestry.com

For links to helpful sites, you will want to take a look at:

http://www.cyndislist.com

And finally for a lot of different resources:

http://www.rootsweb.com

Good luck,
Dave
--
http://www.familypulse.org

Answer 7

Hmmm.. I'm not sure if anyone can accurately assess that without knowing your individual family history but I know that you can look up places where your family name appears most frequently. Also, if you look at heraldry sites you might be able to find out the history and origin of your last name and get to see your cool coat of arms :)

Good luck!