Heritage Question?

Question

I want to know my family's cultural background but I don't know what to do. My ancestors have never put in their information onto any online things before and I'm still confused about how much irish I am and how much English I am?

Does anyone have any suggestions/websites that could help me?

Answer 1

Start with your parents and grandparents and record their names, birth and death dates, and places of birth and death as your family remembers them. This will form a base to compare the information you receive from census and/or immigration records. You can obtain census and immigration records in one of two ways: 1) Look them up on microfilm at a public or university library; 2) Obtain a membership in Ancestry.com or else access this web site or others like it through a public or university library. Some sites, such as the Latter Day Saint sponsored Familysearch.org, are free-of-charge.

To start with, don't worry about what countries your ancestors originated from because you may be surprised by your findings. I started to trace my family history back in the 1970s by looking at the US Census at the local public library, but it wasn't until this past year that I could trace both my mom's and dad's ancestors back past about 1850, and the family bibles went back about this far. I still can't trace all my family lines back to their point-of-origin, but I can trace a good many of them back across the Atlantic.