GenealogyDNA.com

The Rootsweb Genealogy DNA ancestral community believes in helping people trace their genetic roots back in time. There are many options a person can use on this website, including many contacts with people that have the same interest in extending their knowledge of their family tree.

By simply entering a surname and location, if possible, a list of members will be generated with contact information. To help people narrow down their search after the surname is the approximate date in which the family tree is traced back to. As an example, the name Ricketts has members that have traced their family tree back to 1550. This tree is followed all the way up into current times.

Also included in this brief introduction of names and times is the migration route the family took to reach America or their migration across America.

This is the site to visit and join if you wish to share the knowledge you have obtained about your family tree. You can also find assistance in locating your past with help from other members. Today, there are hundreds of gigabytes of data on the site only involving the tracing of thousands of family trees.

There are literally millions of online genealogy researchers sharing information on this site, all contributing with the same goal in mind, finding their past and sharing it.

At the present time, there are 1,211,559 different surnames registered on the site. The submissions have been done by 303,651 different online genealogists that have voluntarily offered their information and research. This brings the total number of family tress or ancestral names up to 372,595,410.

The Rootsweb Genealogy DNA data base is a great place to start your search through the past or share the knowledge you have already obtained.

The Genealogical DNA test has taken the field of DNA testing to a new height. Gathering information and tracing one’s family tree through DNA testing has given a new edge to genealogy. In finding out one’s ethnic and genetic make up, once the individual has exhausted all sources in gathering information, the last and probably the best resort lies in Genealogical DNA Test.

It helps to confirm whether the individual is able to incorporate the right people in his or her family tree. These Genealogy DNA tests do not ascertain paternity. These tests inform you about genealogical information.

This type of testing examines the specific location of nucleotides within a person’s DNA in order to fulfill genetic genealogical purposes. The test results are not enriched with informative clinical value; these only provide genealogical readings and information.

The popularly known Y chromosome (Y-DNA) test and mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA testing examine the direct-line paternal and maternal ancestry, respectively. A DNA test for ascertaining ancestry is not exactly a new practice. Lately it has reached heightened popularity because of cost factors and public awareness.

Being affordable, such tests are very much within the financial reach of common people.  The kits for testing ancestry are available in many places in the market nowadays, including right here on this website.

A Genealogy DNA Test can easily be done sitting at home. It is a very simple and painless process. You just need to collect buccal swab, more commonly called cheek-scraping from the interior walls of your cheek and send the sample to a genealogical lab. Later you can collect your report from the lab.

Genealogical DNA Tests have opened new interest areas in people. There are innumerable people who barely know about their family backgrounds beyond one or two generations. These tests often reveal results from a different angle; in the case of people having a migratory clan as their ancestors can know about their ancient homeland from such tests.

You may check out our advertiser, Family Tree DNA, by clicking on the banner to the right. or by CLICKING HERE.

With DNA testing for ancestry, the field of Genealogy has more tools than ever to discover your family tree.  No longer is there the need to dig deep into historical records and family history, although there will still be plenty of this fun stuff to do.  A simple DNA test can start you on the road to discovering your ancestors from 10,000 years ago.

Men and women can both test their DNA to learn the origin of their maternal ancestry.  A specific kind of test called mtDNA or mitochondrial DNA, searches only the women along the line, no men.  Women and men both receive their mtDNA from their mother.

Men can learn the origin of their paternal line by testing their Y chromosome.  The Y chromosome test checks only the paternal line. Women do not have Y DNA and cannot be tested for their paternal line.  If they want to know their paternal ancestry they must ask a brother or their father to be tested.

Once the DNA sample is taken, genealogists will determine your haplogroup.  This is a set of a people with a common ancestor, often from 10,000 to 150,000 years ago, the time when humans evolved in Africa and then migrated around the world.  Men have both a paternal and maternal haplogroup; women have only the maternal haplogroup because they bear only X chromosomes while men have an X and a Y.

A fascinating result of the DNA test is to see where your ancient family members migrated across the globe.  You’ll see how mutations in early genetic lines affect your family too.   You’ll learn all the genetic influences in your ancient family tree.  You may have Asian influence you don’t know about or you may be related to Napolean or a U.S. President.   DNA testing for ancestry will provide knowledge about your unique family history you never thought possible.

There are many excellent blogs and websites around the web that discuss our favorite subject, Genealogy DNA. Once in a while we will highlight some of them for our readers and we think that you will agree that they provide many things to think about

mtDNA Facts:

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Facts, Maternity, Genealogy, Forensics

Mitochondrial DNA in the egg is passed directly to all daughters and sons. mtDNA is useful for forensics, maternity, female lineages, and ancestry studies.

Publish Date: 04/11/2010 7:32

http://inderdisciplinaryscience.suite101.com/article.cfm/mitochondrial-dna-mtdna-facts-maternity-genealogy-forensics

DNA?

Double helix… A stair or DNA?

Author:liber

Are You Sure You Have the Right Family?

Crowe’s Nest by Elizabeth Powell Crowe » Blog Archive » DNA …

Roots & Branches: Shay or Harper? DNA holds the answer. ‎Lebanon Daily News – James M. Beidler – 2 days agoOnly in the brave new world of DNA genealogy can you start out looking for Shays and end up finding that you’re a Harper. …

Publish Date: 04/14/2010 9:11

http://blog.epcrowe.com/archives/479

Sephardic Presentations:

Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog: Boston: Sephardic …

Two Sephardic presentations (covering history, genealogy and DNA) are on the program of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston on Sunday, April 25. The program begins at 1:30 pm, at Temple Emanuel, Newton Centre, …

Publish Date: 04/15/2010 8:11

http://tracingthetribe.blogspot.com/2010/04/boston-sephardic-jewry-history-dna.html

And a Cute Video about Adam:

DNA Genealogy – Meet Adam

DNA Genealogy – Meet Adam, the most distant ancestor to us all. He is the oldest grandfather we have, and he connects us all!

Please leave comments below.

It’s the caveman in all of us that we can now blame for our uncivilized behavior. It turns out humans did not entirely replace Neanderthals 30,000 years ago. There was an overlap of time and place that carries on the Neanderthal gene in some people today.

Based on DNA fragments taken from recent discoveries of ancient bones, scientists have constructed approximately 60 percent of the Neanderthal genome, drafting the sequence from billions of DNA letters .

They’re comparing it to our human genome sequence and finding some surprising results, such as evidence that at one time, Neanderthals and humans mated.

Thanks in part to advances in DNA science researchers are able for the first time to isolate the genes of ancient ancestors. For example, one of the challenges of this kind of work is separating the Neanderthal DNA from the DNA of other microbes and organisms that settled on the bones during decomposition, organisms such as insects.

Powerful computers compare the fragments of DNA sequencing with those of humans and chimpanzees and then they look at the known sequence of ancient plants and ask if it looks more like a human or more like a fungus that invaded the bone after death.

In the case of this latest discover, scientists completed the genome sequences of five modern day humans for comparison to the Neanderthal. They studied people from China, France, Papua New Guinea and two from Africa. The researchers expected that Neanderthal DNA would be equally distant from everyone, however they were shocked to find concentrations of Neanderthal existing in the non-Africans.

This suggests there was inter-breeding occurring in a previously unknown period after our ancestors left Africa, but before modern humans emerged.

So when someone says you have no manners, blame your rude behavior on the little bit of caveman in all of us, or at least, those of us with ancestors from Europe and Asia.

Our Genealogy surnames owe their origins to the Chinese who first adopted their use 5000 years ago. A surname, or last name, is a common name held by all members of a family to distinguish two or people with the same first name.

Though the Chinese found merit in surnames, the practice of handing a name down through the generations did not take hold in Europe until the 10th or 11th centuries. First this was done by aristocracy around Venice, but eventually all classes of Europeans used surnames to establish known members of a family.

Surname genealogy has roots in four distinct areas. Some last names were actually the first name of the father. This kind of surname is called patronymic. Some examples include Roberts – son of Robert or Michaels –son of Michael.

In Ireland, the placement of the single letter “O” before the father’s name created a surname like O’Dunn. In Old England, the name “Fitz” was placed before a father’s name such as Fitzpatrick.

The second kind of surname showed off social status or employment. One of the most common names among English-speaking peoples is Smith and it corresponds with a most common occupation of old, blacksmith. Wagner comes from wagon maker and Cooper comes from barrel maker.

The third origin of surname involved location. The Welsh word for church was “kirK’ and the name Kirkpatrick denoted the “church of St. Patrick”. Many last names match the location of towns and villages in Europe.

And lastly, personality had a role in the creation of surnames. A muscular individual took the name Armstrong. Reid might have had red hair and Sharp was likely an intelligent sort.

Record keeping was much like the old game of “telephone” and often, the spelling of the same surname got changed with subsequent generations.

Whatever your interest in genealogy surnames, a whole new world awaits you simply for typing in your last name in the blue box above and seeing where it takes you.

Those of you that do genealogy research should enjoy this incredibly rare video of what big city living was like in the early 1900′s. A couple of weeks ago there was a huge discussion on one of the genealogy mail lists about why there were so many deaths by train in the old days.

Update: (PLEASE NOTE – This video is being resized and will be available soon.) Available NOW !

San Francisco Video Before the Earthquake

The common term you find in old newspaper articles is, “Killed by the cars”. Well when you view this video it will all become perfectly clear to you as to why so many people were killed by the cars.

Perhaps folks in the horse and buggy days were used to a horse having enough common sense to shy away from a human standing in the road. Chances are trains and electric rail cars didn’t move off the track much.

OK, so this old video does not have anything to do with DNA testing but it sure got my genealogy juices flowing. Please enjoy and if you like it as much as we do please link to it or tell your friends. Thank you.

Video of  San Francisco Before the Earthquake 1906

The following description of the actual footage is taken from the archives of the Library of Congress.

Market Street, San Francisco, California.

This rare film was shot from the front window of a moving Market Street cable car, is one of the only video records of San Francisco’s principal thoroughfare and downtown area before their destruction in the 1906 earthquake and fire.

The filmed ride covers 1.55 miles at an average speed of nearly 10 miles per hour. While there is no production or copyright information on the film, the state of completion of the Flood Building and the Monadnock Building indicate that the year is 1905.

Also, the apparent position of the sun in relation to the time visible on the Ferry Building clock point to early September as the month. Market Street, graded through sand dunes in the 1850′s, is 120 feet wide, and nearly 3.5 miles long.

The street runs northeast from the foot of Twin Peaks to the Ferry Building. Different street grids, diagonal on the northwest side and parallel on the southeast side, create several awkward diagonal intersections along Market Street, contributing to the chaotic traffic situation that is evident in the film.

San Francisco’s cable cars, which first began operations in 1873, have no power of their own, and operate by “gripping” a moving cable beneath a slot in the street. This is the origin of the name “south of the slot” for the South-of-Market Street district.

The Market Street lines, dating from 1883, merged in 1902 to form the United Railroads of San Francisco. Dark cars served westerly neighborhood lines extending along McAllister, Hayes and Haight streets, light cars served southwesterly neighborhoods, with the lines extending along Valencia and Castro streets.

The Market Street section of the lines ended at the Ferry Building, where passengers boarded ferries for Oakland, Alameda, or Berkeley, across San Francisco Bay. East of Sutter Street, horse cars ran along Market Street. Independently owned, they ran on side tracks to the Ferry Building.

A few electric streetcars, dating from 1892, are seen in the film crossing Market Street. Market Street itself reverted to electric streetcars in 1906, following the earthquake and fire. In all, the film shows some thirty cable cars, four horse cars and four streetcars. An interesting feature of the film is the apparent abundance of automobiles.

However, a careful tracking of automobile traffic shows that almost all of the autos seen circle around the camera/cable car many times (one ten times).

This traffic was apparently staged by the producer to give Market Street the appearance of a prosperous modern boulevard with many automobiles. In fact, in 1905 the automobile was still something of a novelty in San Francisco, with horse-drawn buggies, carts, vans, and wagons being the common private and business vehicles.

The near total lack of traffic control along Market Street emphasizes the newness of the automobile. Granite paving stripes in the street marking ignored pedestrian crosswalks, making the crossing of Market Street on foot a risky venture. The pedestrian “islands” for homeward-bound downtown cable car commuters are among the few signs of order visible in the film.

A new DNA database is under development after scientists believe they may have found a new species of human.

High in the Altai mountains in southern Siberia in the Denisova cave, Russian archealogists unearthed the finger bone of a young child in 2008. The child was believed to be 5 to 7 years old at the time of death and the bone was tested for mitochondrial DNA.

Now scientists wonder if a new branch of the human family tree existed between Homo erectus that left Africa two million years ago and Neanderthals that left 500,000 years ago.

The Denisova child is believed to come from a form of human that left Africa about one million years ago. Researchers caution that the child may not belong to a new species of human, but from a small population formed by interbreeding among lineages. The remainder of the child’s DNA from the nuclear genome will be tested to determine this.

Radiocarbon dating first established the timeframe of the child’s death, estimating the boy or girl lived during the Pleistocene Ice Age between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago. Because the earth’s climate was much colder at that time, it’s likely the child wore some form of clothing.

Scientists were surprised to unearth more modern artifacts at the site too, such as jewelry. This kind of object was more indicative of modern humans in Europe so scientists will try to determine if the objects were related or they were left behind by other cultures through the ages.

This discovery debunks the linear theory of genealogy and will eventually affect family DNA surname projects. Until recently scientists believed there was a linear development of the human species, beginning with Homo erectus then Neanderthal and finally modern humans, Homo Sapien.

This new branch or potential new species will surely add to the growing DNA database growing daily around the world.

The fascinating world of genealogy, once familiar to scientists and history buffs only, is now finding its way into American family rooms. “Scavenger hunt is a good way to describe it. That’s what it feels like,” actress Lisa Kudrow tells “Entertainment Tonight”.

A British TV import called “Who do you think you are?” has arrived on American shores, and critics like the New York Time’s Neil Genzlinger call it “addictive”. Why? Because it traces the genealogy of a celebrity and shows us all they are a lot like us, with curious and notable ancestors, but just as often, ancestors who were perfectly ordinary and dull, like many of us believe our own lives to be in comparison to what occurs in Hollywood.

The program airs Friday nights on NBC. Over the course of seven weeks, it follows seven well-knowns; one per night, as they discover their family tree and curiously, why they seem predisposed to certain careers or behaviors.

Actress and model Brooke Shields travels to Europe with the show and learns why French Literature has always seemed interesting to her. The actress Susan Sarandon scours old nightclubs of 1930s New York to know more about her grandmother who performed as a dance-hall girl.

By far the saddest family history is revealed to Kudrow whose production company “Is or Isn’t Entertainment” brought the show to American audiences. In Kudrow’s episode the 46- year old Jewish star of “Friends” travels to Belarus to learn about her ancestors. She was in tears to find out members of her family were taken to Concentration Camps during World War II and massacred by the Nazis.

Kudrow discovered her great-great grandmother was “killed and burned” with 900 other Jews in a single event.

That is one of the aspects of the show that audiences seem to be astonished by. They can’t believe how close they came to not being born for all the struggles for survival their ancestors endured.

Genealogy websites like GenealogyDNA.com are prepared for the wave of new individuals who want to explore their family tree. Keep in mind these findings don’t involve trips around the world like the celebrities on “Who Do You Think You Are”, but they do answer many of the questions you might have about your distant past; answers previously available only after time consuming searches through historical documents in libraries and passenger manifests from turn-of-the-last century ships.

All human beings have some degree of curiosity about where they came from, and thanks to relatively inexpensive DNA testing and websites like GenealogyDNA.com and familytreedna, many others are turning this curiosity into a serious hobby.

Hundreds of thousands of surname projects are underway in this country with the use of Y-DNA testing and now with a program called Family Finder you can fill in missing relatives within the inner branches of your family tree. It all begun with the inquisitive nature of just one person. That’s all it takes to begin. A DNA kit and simple cheek swab begins the process of unlocking the secrets of the past.

Other episodes of “Who Do You Think You Are” feature actress Sarah Jessica Parker. The audience comes along on her travels through libraries and visits with historians and in places where her ancestors lived as she learns her family name was involved in key historic events.

Football player Emmit Smith finds out about a link to a young female slave. Other stars like actor Matthew Broderick and Director Spike Lee get their moments of additional fame as well.

In this day and age when science is widely available and information is instantaneously spread online, television shows like “Who Do You Think You Are” serve a new purpose; uniting ordinary folks with the celebrities they admire on a personal journey through their family history.

By doing your own genealogy research and also having your DNA tested with a company like our advertiser, FamilyTreeDNA, will register you and your family genes in this ever growing database of linked family members.

Family Tree Surname Projects

How would you like to discover family members you never knew you had? Or go deep into the roots of your family tree? Well now you can, and it’s never been easier . Family Tree DNA has the largest DNA database in the country. More than 280-thousand people have joined this 21st century genealogy science by submitting DNA samples for information about their families.

If you have an unusual last name or surname, it’s not surprising others with that surname are your relatives. But what are the chances you’re related to the other Smith’s or Jones’s? That’s where a Y-DNA test comes in. Y is for the Y chromosome found only in men. Men who wish to find out about their ancestry submit a simple and painless cheek swab to Family Tree DNA and the experts in the lab take it from there, matching your genetic makeup with others across the globe.

If you’re a woman seeking information about your paternal heritage, ask a brother or other male relative if they’ll submit a cheek swab for testing. Women lack the Y chromosome and therefore are eligible for a different genetic test called mtDNA.

There are surname projects underway all over the world and Family Tree DNA is at the forefront of this bold new technology. If you want to join in an existing surname project, simply type in your last name in the box above me to see if a project for your surname is underway. If not, consider starting one yourself. It’s only a matter of time before you learn of others both near and far who share a common ancestor with you.

Y-DNA testing at Family Tree DNA. Finding familial bonds in people you’ve not yet met.

If you have any questions or comments about Family Tree Surname Projects, please leave a comment below or use the Contact form.  Thank you.

Click this link to view another video about Family Finder to find relatives on the inner branches of your family tree.

Family Tree DNA launches the “Family Finder” DNA test. (Latest press release)

“Houston, TX – February 16, 2010 – Family Tree DNA, the pioneer and largest DNA testing company for genealogy purposes, is launching today their newest test – named Family Finder – which will allow connecting with family members across all ancestral lines.

“This is the most exciting genetic genealogy breakthrough since the company launched its Y-DNA test, which uncovers relatives in the direct paternal line”, says Bennett Greenspan, founder and CEO of Family Tree DNA. Initially available to current Family Tree DNA members, Family Finder will be offered to the general public in mid-March.

While the Y-DNA matches men with a specific paternal line and the mtDNA finds potential relatives only along the maternal line, Family Finder can look for close relationships along all ancestral lines. Anyone, regardless of their gender, may now confidently match to male and female cousins from any of their family lines in the past five generations. The science – linked blocks of DNA across the 22 autosomal chromosomes are matched between two people.

Based on this concept, Family Tree DNA bioinformatics team has worked extensively to develop the calculations that would yield the closeness of the relationship.

The possibilities to find matches abound: grandparents, aunts and uncles; half siblings; first, second, third and fourth cousins; and, more tentatively, fifth cousins.

Unlike other companies that offer autosomal testing for relationship purposes, the Family Tree DNA “Family Finder” focuses on the genealogy of the test takers: matching contact names and email addresses are readily available for easy communication, and special tools have been developed to assist in the genealogy and matching process.”

So this is great news for our readers, as when you are tested by Family Tree DNA, the chances of being able to locate many more cousins is greatly increased.

Please type your surname of interest in the affiliate banner at the top of this page for more information on Genealogy DNA testing at Family Tree DNA.

Update: Click this link to view another in-depth video regarding DNA Testing for Genealogy.

Now find out if two families have a common ancestor, CLICK HERE: Family Finder and add new people to your family tree.

Simply put, genetic genealogy is the use of DNA to ascertain a genetic relationship between individuals.  The Father of Evolution, Charles Darwin, is also credited with the early study of genetics, before the discovery of microscopic cell part deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.

Darwin’s son George was able to study surnames in Britain and determine the rate of incidence of marriage among people with the same last name.  Interestingly, upper-class families were more likely to marry a cousin than the lower classes.  In fact, Charles Darwin himself was married to his first cousin Emma Wedgwood.

It wasn’t for another 100 years that major advances would be made along Darwin’s theory and it took an unlikely American running for U.S President to thrust the issue in the public eye.

Barack Obama is reported to have German roots that go back to the 1700s.  According to a popular ancestry website, Obama’s great, g, g, g, g, grandfather Johann Conrad Woelflin was born in Besigheim, Germany in January, 1729.  He emigrated to America in 1750 and settled in Pennsylvannia under the name of Wolfley.

This is intriguing because the findings follow another report that Obama bears some Irish ancestry.  No one who looks at Barack Obama would doubt he is anything but the product of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father, but Obama’s family tree is a common one.  Many Americans believe they have only a few national strains in their DNA when in fact they have the influence of several countries in their family tree.

When told the charismatic American President was a descendant of Germany, the country responded with cheers.  This isn’t the first U.S. President to be so named.  Dwight Eisenhower also had German roots.

Dive into your genetic genealogy and prepare yourself for wondrous information about your family you never believed possible.

Your ancestry by DNA is available with a few hundred dollars, four weeks and a simple cheek swab.  Finding ancestors via a genetic highway to the past is the most exciting breakthrough in the field of genetic research in decades.

The process begins with a kit from a laboratory that tests DNA and establishes a database for comparison.  The kit includes a plastic scraper which painlessly scrapes off loose cells in the lining of the check called buccal cells.  These cells contain the building blocks of life called DNA.

It only takes a few seconds and does not break the skin or cause any pain.  You place the sample into the tube that is provided in your kit and you send it to the pre-addressed envelope.

When the lab brings in the sample, workers will separate your cells from the plastic swab by use of unique buffers to suspend the cells in a sterile liquid.  In a series of washes the cells are purified and isolated further through a high speed spinning process called centrifugation.    This step occurs several times to create a pure DNA sample, separate from all other matter in the liquid transport.

The next step in the process is called “lysis” in which cells are heated to such a degree that the cell membrane breaks open.  Once the cell is breached the DNA leaches into the solution.  This is when the matching with other individuals occurs.

In a process called PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, DNA strands get separated, are combined with primers specific to each Y-chromosome and are annealed or stuck to the DNA strands.  Over the course of several repetitions, another chemical process takes place that amplifies Y-chromosome markers of interest to the researchers.

From here scientists can unlock the mysteries of ancestry by DNA and “unite” you with your ancestors in just a matter of hours.

Update: News from Family Tree DNA explains how now you may locate other family members in your family tree from internal branches, not just your direct paternal or maternal lines. It is explained in the following video at: Family Finder

If you want DNA genetics it is not necessary to test every member of your family.   The Y-chromosome present in the cells of all males will yield results for all male members of your family.  Women lack the Y-chromosome and have only X chromosomes.  In this case, the mitochondrion of women is tested and findings apply to the female family members.

Popular media such as the television crime dramas show conclusive proof of DNA guilt or innocence.  DNA used for genealogy is not as fool proof.   Populations have been mixing since humans first left Africa 150,000 years ago, so while a DNA marker reveals a strong link of origin to a single group, it is not 100 percent guaranteed proof since no marker has been found to lie exclusively in one group.

Researchers believe every person on earth originates from only 100,000 early individuals and in some ancient way we are all related; your neighbor, your colleague, your best friend:  Even famous and infamous individuals like President Roosevelt or Henry VIII !

In spite of the scientific advances in DNA technology, the test is relatively simple.  A painless cheek swab is sent to a lab for analysis.  Technicians extract, amplify and analyze the cellular sample and then compare and match it to DNA samples from a database of other samples.  At this point they are looking to link it to a particular haplotype which is a grouping of closely linked genes.

When a person is found to share maternal or paternal ancestry lines with other people it is called lineage testing.  There is another kind of analysis called admixture testing which centers on 22 pairs of chromosomes not related to gender such as the Y which is exclusive to men and the X present in men and in women.

Regardless of the method you choose, DNA genetics will yield far more information about your ancestors than mere historical records can show.

There are several surname genealogy options available for anyone hoping to document their family tree.  In order to properly understand and document your Y-DNA test results for your male ancestors, which is also called surname genealogy, you will need to do some basic genealogical research.

Begin with the person you know best; yourself!  Using a website that facilitates ancestry searches, begin by writing everything you know about your origins and those of your family.

List the names and birthplaces of your parents and your grandparents if you know them.  Go back as far as you can.  Whether you know a lot about your family history or a little, this is a good place to start.

If you choose a more traditional approach, write about your family history offline, the old fashioned way.  Get a paperboard and construct a family tree using documents and photographs.  In these modern times your display may include website addresses that contain audio and video files from your family uploaded to the web.

Creating a family history book is an exciting project that capitalizes on the scrapbooking hobby so popular today.  There are several websites that can help you with design ideas for your project.  A quick search on scrapbooking will bring you many choices.

One of the best resources for information about your family is your oldest family members.  Talk to them and get them involved; your grandparents, aunts and uncles, your great-grandparents if they are living.  They have many interesting stories to tell but often won’t offer them up because they think no one is interested.

If you show an interest in their early years you’ll be amazed at what you learn.  You’ll see these family members in a whole new light and you’ll have a treasure trove of new information to write down and share with future generations.

If you decide to interview older relatives, consult with a website that has ideas on the types of questions to get you started.  Once you have the information, the most exciting aspect of surname genealogy is to share it with other family members so that your ancestry becomes a well-worn tale.

The traditional research methods described above coupled with modern day Genealogy DNA testing will bring you many hours of fascinating fun.