...where do I start?

I am on a quest to find out as much information as I can on my family heritage, including the origin of my last name (considering I'm caucasion) and my family's coat of arms.

Has anyone done this before? Has anyone paid someone to do it? I am looking for a great starting point.

 

It takes some doing but can be done through common sources.

Know some history of your grand parents because it is going to help a lot.

You can google their names and items will come up but a lot of junk, the filtering process is the part that makes all the difference in accuracy and it can take years sometimes. I only made it as far as my great great grandparents on my mothers side and my great grand parents on my fathers side.

 

My dad has been doing that for the past 5 years at least. He just found out that I'm part Scottish! From way way way back.

He got a program from Costco. You get a free membership to a website that costs about 200 bucks a year. The program was 50.

 

My grandfather does that.

 

i have 3 volumes of genealogy stuff. all in chinese. i have no clue how its organized, but there must be like 28934 names in there. my dad went to korea, got it made and got my name added before he died. when i have my kids, i want to do that too, but iono how/where to go.

 

i've tried. i found some sites that were cool. i even got in touch with a family member that i never knew. this was a while back. i dont remember much.