family heritage/history?

Question

is it possible to figure out your family roots/heritage without having to pay online?

and no dont tell me to go ask my family

my family is from nicaragua i live in the u.s. and my last name is Cerda

Answer 1

This is a text file I paste to questions like yours. People ask similar questions 3 - 14 times a day here. You get a long, detailed answer, I don't get finger cramps. It is long because there are over 400,000 free genealogy sites.

It is also long because researching your family tree is as hard as writing a term paper in a History class. You don't have to be a rocket scientist, but you won't do it with five clicks. I could tell you everything I know in 30 minutes, but not 3.

If you didn't mention a country, we can't tell if you are in the USA, UK, Canada or Australia. I'm in the USA and my links are for it. If you are not, please edit your question to add a country. Genealogists from the UK answer posts here too. They are more experienced and more intelligent than I am. I'm better looking and my jokes are better.

The really good stuff is in your parents' and grandparents' memories. No web site is going to tell you how your great grandparents decorated the Christmas tree with ornaments cut from tin foil during the depression, how Great Uncle Elmer wooed his wife with a banjo, or how Uncle John paid his way through college in the 1960's by smuggling herbs. Talk to your living relatives before it is too late.

You won't find living people on genealogy sites. Don't look for yourself or your parents.

So much for the warnings. Here are some links. These are large and free. Many of them have subtle ads for Ancestry.com in them - ads that ask for a name, then offer a trial subscription. Watch out for those advertisements.

If you try the links and don't find anyone, go to
http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html
It repeats each link, but it has a whole paragraph of tips and instructions for each one.


http://www.cyndislist.com
Cyndi lists over 250,000 free sites.

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp
The Mormon's mega-site.

http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi
RootsWeb World Connect. The links at the top are advertisements. They mislead beginners. Ignore them and scroll down.

http://www.rootsweb.com/
RootsWeb Home. This is the biggest free (genealogy) site in the world.

http://www.ancestry.com
Ancestry has some free data and some you have to pay for.

http://www.usgenweb.net
US Gen Web. Click on a state. Find a link that says "County".

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

http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
Social Security Death Index. Click on "Advanced". Women are under their married names. They are under their maiden names in most other sites.

http://find.person.superpages.com/
USA Phone book, for looking up distant cousins.

http://vitals.rootsweb.com/ca/death/search.cgi
California Death Index, 1940 - 1997.

http://www.genforum.com
GenForum has surname, state and county boards.

http://boards.ancestry.com/
Ancestry has surname, state and county boards too. They are free.

Please read
http://www.tedpack.org/goodpost.html
before you post on either one. You may want to read the paragraphs about query boards on
http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html
before you search them.

http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl
Roots Web Mailing List Archives.

You may want to read
http://www.tedpack.org/maillist.html
if genealogy mailing lists are new to you.

Off the Internet, some public libraries have census image subscriptions. Many Family History Centers do too. FHC's are small rooms in Mormon churches. They welcome anyone interested in genealogy, not just fellow Mormons. They have resources on CD's and volunteers who are friendly. They don't try to convert you; in fact, they don't mention their religion unless you ask a question about it.

Answer 2

I've done research in Nicaragua. The key is to find an Hispanic priest in the US who is willing to contact his counterpart in the village in Nicaragua where your family lived. There aren't many civil records since the war, but the majority of sacramental records in the Church survived. One priest can easily get information from another priest where the rest of us would otherwise struggle. If the area is very impoverished, I would suggest sending a nice gratuity along in honor of your family so that they can use it for good purposes (like feeding children or buying medicine). Many of the priests down there are missionaries who do their best on a slim little shoestring budget.

Contrary to the cut and pastes above, you're not going to be doing much research on the internet. The countries in Central America do not have an infrastructure to support digitizing records and publishing them on the internet. It's very much the Third World and you have to use the resources as they're made available...on paper. Without someone looking for records for you in Nicaragua, or you travelling there to research on your own, it's not easy to get any records out of the area.

Answer 3

Go with Genevieve's Mom's answer. Churches usually keep records on baptisms, first communion, Confirmation, Marriages and Deaths. Now I believe south of the U.S., Confirmation is administered at the same time as baptism so there might not be a separate register for both.

These records give names of both parents including mother's maiden names.

Answer 4

Well, if we can't tell you to go ask your family, you are going to have a tough time.

Records of people for the last 70 years are exceptionally sparse to say the least on-line (for free or for the highest fee out there). That's because of privacy concerns. Even user submitted genealogical lines are filtered to exclude information about potential living individuals. Posting information, other that the most public of public information (such as phone numbers, court proceedings (some)), online just isn't done.

Unless you get a solid foundation of you, your parents, your grandparents - really back to 1930, you aren't going to get very far (normally) with online resources (free or otherwise).

If you can't ask your family, maybe check scrap books, photo albums from your family if they exist? Other than that, only direct trips to various courthouses and archival offices of cities/counties/states in hopes that some information exists there are going to do you much good.

However, if any KNOWN relative of yours has passed away, you can possibly get their SS-5 (application for social security number) and that usually has a lot of information. You can check the SSDI (social security death index) for free in many different places (familysearch.com is one such place).

Answer 5

ancestry.com is the best site for family history, and they do have a 14 day trial that's free (as long as you cancel it before the end of 14 days) occasionally there are 3 day free trials with no need to input details, and if I come across one I will post it on here.

Answer 6

Source(s):
http://www.worldvitalrecords.com
http://www.ntis.gov/products/pages/ssa-d...

Answer 7

I recommend going to your public library and see id they may have subscribed to one or more of these somewhat expensive sites. i was able to access all but one of these through the public library website from home. Only one did I actually have to be at the library in order to access it.
If your ibrary doesn't have it try to become a member of "The Topeka Public Library"
Good Luck.

Answer 8

Your living in the U.S. and your family being from Nicaragua has nothing to do with your asking your family.
Nest point: BELIEVE it or not, there are many living persons on genealogy websites: I am one of them. I have 6 living siblings; all of them are on genealogy websites. If I add my first cousins and second cousins, the number of persons I KNOW THAT ARE ON GENEALOGY WEBSITES QUICKLY MUSHROOMS! Not only does it give our names, it also gives dates/places of birth, whom married to and lots of other personal information. While many genealogy websites discourage people from posting information of living persons, nothing is done to prevent it.
I do not know a whole lot about searching your genealogy unless you are from the U.S. or Canada. I do know that Spanish, English, Portuguese and other settled in Central and South America. So, UNLESS YOU ARE PURE "INDIAN" (NATIVE AMERICAN) your ancestors will show up somewhere in these sites:

The "easy way" would be to hire a professional genealogist.

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 Scotland, check:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/


For ship’s passenger lists, try:
http://www.immigrantships.net/
www.cyndislist.com/ships.htm
www.geocities.com/Heartland/5978/Emigration.html
www.immigrantstips.net/
www.searchforancestors.com/passengerlists/
www.archives.gov/genealogy/immigration/passenger-arrival.html


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...

Here are some general sites with lists of African names:
http://www.swagga.com/fname.htm
http://www.behindthename.com/nmc/afr.php
http://www.familiesonlinemagazine.com/ba...

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/...


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 9

Melcer is German. The names first surfaced in Austria in medieval times and was a notable name of the region.