Welcome to Your Family Tree
Researching your family tree can be an interesting and rewarding experience that is far more involved than one might think. YourFamilyTree.org has been compiled to provide a starting point for budding genealogists with pointers on where to find records and what to avoid. We hope it helps to find your long lost ancestry.
What is Genealogy?
Genealogy is a subset of history. It is within the family of local and confined history as opposed to the national and world history studied at school. It is the study of personal history relating to one's own family and ancestral lines. Genealogy comes from the Greek word 'Genea' meaning 'family', and 'Logos' meaning knowledge.
Understanding your Ancestry
Whether you are doing genealogical research to create a family tree or looking deeper into your family's history, an understanding of your ancestry could be very important. Understanding your ancestry in terms of the historical, social, cultural and political context can provide clues as to both what your ancestor's lives were like and where to search for more information on them.
Researching your Family Tree Online
Because there has been so much recent interest in the subject of genealogy an enormous amount of resources have been developed or publicized as a result. The internet has also made the study of genealogy more accessible to everyone as many of the resources have been indexed and put on line on microfiche. This enables people to quickly cross reference the information that they do have with the resources so that they can build family trees.
There are a number of online resources including the software packages that you can buy for very reasonable prices which enable you to create a professional looking family tree.
The Origin of your Surname
Surnames did not come in to practice until around 1000AD. This was because there were not enough people really to necessitate this.
Important figures in history denoted their importance through a title such as King or Sir, as in King Arthur or Sir Lancelot. They often earned further titles which were like complimentary nicknames such as William the Conqueror. Incidentally, once William of Normandy had conquered Saxon Britain the population began to significantly increase meaning that a shift in the practice of identifying people had to take place to ensure differentiation between one person and the next.
