There is often much to find hidden within a last name. You can discover your own family history, your geographical roots, your ethnic background, what your ancestors were like and how they spent their lives. A simple search for the history of your last name can provide highly interesting answers to questions you never thought to ask about your past.

Ask Your Family

Parents, uncles, grandparents or other relatives are a good first step in researching your surname's history. Whether they have all the answers or not, chances are they have leads for you in the form of family records, journals or family trees jotted down in the back of an old family Bible.

Connect with Online Resources

Plenty of useful websites and online sources can aid you in your quest to trace the origins of your family name. Try some of the resources linked below to view online documents ranging from birth and marriage certificates to federal census records to ship passenger lists from the Atlantic crossing. Ancestry.com offers a free trial period, during which you can access all the available tools and send messages to other members. Simply enter your family name in the search box to find out the roots of the name as well as relevant records to begin tracing your ancestors. FamilySearch, a free service provided by the LDS church, offers a giant family history library that includes special resources for African American, Jewish and Hispanic family history. For more general and basic information on the history of surnames, check out Last Names, House of Names, or Behind the Name.

Source:

Ancestry.com

Family Search

Last Names

More Information:

Behind the Name