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Step 1
**Start With the Dictionary of American Family Names**
The good old DAFN is a stand-by for surname researchers the world over. It's a massive collection, ordinarily only available through select libraries. But through an arrangement with Ancestry.com, this resource has become available for anyone to use online, at no charge. It's the best place to begin your research.
Ancestry also offers free first name look ups as well, from sources other than the DAFN, so be sure to explore these as well when you visit the site. -
Step 2
**Check Other Online Resources**
There are more than a dozen pretty big, fat e-books on the meaning of family names that are freely available online for searching or download. Some of them are pretty old (and in the public domain) but heck...the histories and meanings of most names haven't changed much over time, eh?
You can find books with cool titles like 'Patronymica Britannica', or more academic works, such as 'The Teutonic name-system applied to the family names of France, England and Germany'. Either way, these are rich resources that can provide good insight into your family history. -
Step 3
**Find Out If You Have a Coat of Arms**
Not all families have a formal heraldry, but if you think yours might, it can be fun to explore. If you're lucky enough to find a coat of arms, you'll also very likely come across some detailed accounts of who was who back in the day, in terms of lordships, titles, estates, manor houses, and things of that sort. Might your great-great-great-granddaddy have been the Duke of Earl? It's worth a look.
No coat of arms for my family. But since you asked...David means beloved king. Sarokin....well, we'll just keep that one a little family secret, shall we?
