Beside my family, where can i find information on the Origin and other information on my last name?

Question

Our last name is Frazer and our family is from Belize. I know that Frazer is a Scottish name.

Answer 1

OK, I googled the surname, Frazer, and got this hit:
Definition: Said to derive from "fraises," the French word for strawberry because the Fraser arms display three silver strawberry flowers on a field of blue.

Surname Origin: Norman, Scottish

Alternate Surname Spellings: FRAZER, FRAZIER, FRASIER

From the website, http://genealogy.about.com/library/surnames/f/bl_name-FRASER.htm

I also googled "Frazer" in Belize and I see there are a lot of Frazers there in police and education, etc.

As to tracing your ancestry, 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 2

Tracing your ancestors is always the best way to know your family origin. Start with yourself and work back. Anytime you wish to do this, there are lots of good people on this board that can give you some great tips and advice.

Frazer is Scottish but people with the same surname can come from more than one nationality. Not everyone with the same surname are related even those of the same national origin.

Also, something the first person stated is misleading. Coats of arms were granted to individuals and passed down to their sons.
There is very likely more than one coat of arms granted to someone named Frazer. The companies that sell them won't have them all as they just need the one for each national origin in order to sell to people who do not understand their use. No one can tell you that a coat of arms was ever granted to someone even related to you without researching your family history.

See the links below one from the U. S. National Genealogical Society and the other from the British college of arms.

http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/Faq.htm

http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comconsumerpsst.cfm

Answer 3

There is a book called " The Oxford Book of Names " which you should be able to find through your local library. The Internet is a wonderful tool, but so are books use every thing you can.

Good luck and good hunting

Answer 4

Belize has a community of Mennonites, maybe that has some connection to your northwestern European ancestry. Try googling your coat of arms in Scotland.

Answer 5

ancesters.com

Answer 6

ellisisland.org???????? maybe