How to Find Origins of Surnames
Finding the origin of a surname can be interesting and educational. Surnames are fairly new in the large scheme of history, only having come about within the last 5,000 years, and were meant to help distinguish two different people with the same first name. If you are interested in possibly finding out what your family looked like many years ago, what they did or where they lived, starting with the origin of your surname can be a very useful key.
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Things You'll Need
- First and last name of immediate family
- Birth and/or death certificates of immediate family (if possible)
- Census records
- Passports (if available)
- Family Bibles (if available)
Instructions
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Locate some reputable surname Websites. Two of them that might be of much use are anzestry.com and originsnetwork.com. Although these two sites will charge a fee for the research involved, they do specialize in particular regions. For example, anzestry.com, while useful for any nationality, has particular focus for those that have Australian heritage, and originsnetwork.com focuses predominantly on surnames from the British Isles.
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Search for a country's census records. One such site that should be helpful is genealinks.com. This is important for folks who wish to trace the history of their Eastern-European relatives. These individuals often changed their surnames to sound more "American." They or the officials did this when they passed through immigration at Ellis Island, New York.
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Try the database yutopian.com. This is particularly helpful for individuals of Chinese heritage. Often time, the names themselves, at least in the Chinese language, are written with just one symbol. These symbols, however, often fully describe a type of person with a particular surname.
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Look through ireland-information.com if the heritage in question being sought is Irish. This is for the many folks whose surnames begin with "O'" or "Mc." In addition, individuals whose last name is "White" can often find useful information on this site as well. This is due to one of the frequent Gaelic spellings of "White," which is "de Faoite" or "Mac Faoitigh".
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Look through usa-people-search.com for dozens of other surnames. This database site has links for anything from Lithuanian heritage to Austrian heritage. An important fact about this site is that it covers a great deal of clans belonging to surnames that relocated to the United States.
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Tips & Warnings
It is a good idea to construct a research log or family group sheet for each surname you are researching. It is likely that there will be massive amounts of data and resources available. This is the best way to keep everything organized.
While this might not be too plentiful, some people have access to family Bibles. This can often uncover a great deal of background of a clan's history as well.
Tromping through your parent or grandparent's attic, if at all possible, can reveal a virtual treasure trove of materials that might be of significant assistance in undertaking surname research.
