Where should I get started in finding my genealogy?

Question

I know my mom's side. My dad's side, though, is what I want to know. My dad doesn't know much about it, and whenever I ask my grandfather, he just tells us "My dad came from Armenia" and changes the subject because he's embarrassed his family came from the Middle East.

I have a strange last name and only my grandfather's first name to go by. Where should I start?

Oh, and I can't pay for anything, either!

Answer 1

With your living family. Get as much information from them as possible, particuarly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you. It might turn out they are confused on some things but what might seem to be insignificant story telling might turn out to be very significant.

Go to your public library and see what all they have. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can utilize. Ancestry.Com has lots of records. They have all the U. S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 is not available to the public yet.

Now don't take as fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. Most is not documented. Even when you see the same information repeatedly by many different submitters, that does not mean it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. There are errors in family trees on the internet. Use the information as clues as to where to get the documentation.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has lots of records, not just on Mormons. 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 have never had them to try and convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell.

Don't get overly involved in the origin of a surname as the same surname can come from more than one nationality. Also people with the same surname do not necessarily share ancestors even when they are from the same national origin.

Vital records are important, births, marriages, deaths. Now it was the first quarter of the 20th century that governing bodies started recording vital information. Before that church records will be an important source.

Answer 2

You've gotten lots of good imput from others above. My only thought about the Armenian connection is that depending on when the family left Armenia, some of them may have been killed in the genocide by the Turks. Obviously, this would be a very painful topic that the family might not have wanted to discuss. Armenians fled to a variety of countries to escape.

Answer 3

So far, everyone wants information for free! Not to worry! Besides your local library, there are lots of websites!

Due to the amount of information required to do a fairly decent family tree, if you go back more than just a few generations, you will find it to be VERY time intensive. PCs now have humongous storage on their hard drives; but, if you COULD put everything into the computer, you will soon find it is very difficult to organize all that information. I currently have more than 100 MB of info, and most of it is not even in the computer YET.

If you are sincerely interested in your ahnentafel, your genealogy, you will need to be dedicated and organized. So, try these sites and suggestions:

The biggest expense will be TIME; I have spent hundreds of hours and have so much left to compile.
Remember, no matter where you obtain the information, there are mistakes (yes, I include "official" documents, such as birth certificates, marriage licenses, death certificates, whatever). My maternal grandmother's tombstone doesn't even have her name correct!
Anyhew, as to searching, try these:
Free sites: there are several to choose from. Start with:
http://www.searchforancestors.com/...

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739...

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/

Assuming they emigrated from Europe, start with Ellis Island and the Battery Conservancy sites:
http://www.ellisisland.org
http://www.castlegarden.org
For those with native American ancestry, try:
http://www.tribalpages.com/

For a fee, try a DNA test:
When you really want to know where your ancestors came from, try such sites as: www.familytreedna.com, dnatribes.com, dnaancestryproject.com, and, of course, the National Geographics Genotype program, https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/geno...
For Jewish ancestry, try:
www.israelgenealogy.com
Have a look at these sites these are South African ones,
http://genealogy.about.com/od/south_afri...
http://www.rupert.net/~lkool/page2.html....
http://www.jewishgen.org/safrica/website...
http://southafricanfamilyhistory.wordpre...

Meaning of names:
http://www.winslowtree.com/surname-meani...

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/f...

Finding live people:
Two good places I use are www.zabasearch.com and www.peoplefinder.com

Don't forget, use your local library. Ours (a small one, yet) has www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com, as well as periodicals, books and guidance from an experienced genealogist.

Keep good notes on where you find what: sources are very important.

I became interested in genealogy when I was a small lad, before I started to school, as my Mom would tell me about her parents, my Dad's parents, and on back. That is also when I first got used to the idea of "the power of 2": You have 2 parents, they each have 2 parents, and so on. 5 generations ago, you would have had 16 g-g-g-grandparents; by 10 generations ago, the number would be 512 "grandparents"; by 35 generations ago, the number is 16,179,869,184 persons (compared to a total of 6,700,000,000 people alive on Planet Earth today). In other words, basically every one on earth can trace their COMMON ancestry back to within the last 34 generations! (Or, since Medieval Times.)

Good luck!

Answer 4

Try to talk to your grandfather again, explain that you are very interested in your heritage and would like to know more of where his family came from, their customs, the food, etc. his family coming from the middle east has nothing to do with the problems there now.
If he won't budge,talk with cousins, aunts and uncles.
The best place to start on the genealogy path is interviewing all living relatives and getting names, dates, relations, and places from them.
I wish you all the luck.

Answer 5

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ridge/6925/links7.htm

Of course, you need to first collect what records you can from the US. You can start by taking time to read one of many tutorials, such as at www.rootsweb.com.
Emphasize that you want to preserve your background as a matter of pride. Sometimes you can "crack" reluctant relatives by asking them to tell you a positive memory, like a family custom at holidays, so forth. Sometimes, people open up when they see you making the efforts to learn about your heritage.