I want to learn as much as I can about my family.?

The best way I know for you to learn about your roots is to:

Build your family tree on line.

You can use a paid site like:

http://www.ancestry.com/

OR You can do this for free on:

http://www.tribalpages.com/

Start with yourself, and then attach living family members.

Find out all you can about you family from living members, then attach it to your tree.

Now it is time to look for historical records and attach the info to your tree:

It is ALL about census records, and other historical records!

You might get lucky and others may have done some work on your family tree. Google family members names i.e. "Mary Smith" + "family tree"

Free sites:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=27399&o_lid=27...

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/

http://www.cyndislist.com/

http://www.findagrave.com/

Genealogy message board:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/messageboards/newguide/?board...

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=ab...

http://boards.ancestry.com/

http://www.gensource.com/common/search.cfm

http://messages.yahoo.com/yahoo/Family___Home/Gene...

http://genforum.genealogy.com/

http://www.genealogyforum.com/messages/

http://www.progenealogists.com/messageboards.htm

http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/boards.php?...

http://boards.rootsweb.com/

ECT.

The time may come when you want more information than you can find for free. When this happens you can back up your "tribalpage" tree to your computer on a "GEDCOM" file

you can then go to (I think it is the best subscription site)

http://www.ancestry.com/

Upload your "GEDCOM" file

and start to work!

You might need to make a few adjustments to your tree to make it look better.

DNA testing will tell you where in the world you are from originally, but it can't tell you anything about your ancestors as individuals. And it's quite pricey too.

If you haven't already asked your nearest and dearest, then do so soon. They're a font of knowledge about your past. Even the simplest thing to them could unlock your whole family history. And it's cheaper too. Look into the DNA thing when you've exhausted every other avenue.

DNA might help, but asking relations might be of more use. Humans are among the least genetically diverse of all animals - I know that you Americans are fixated with "race" and "ethnicity" - but imagine if we were like dogs? We could happily interbreed with animals ten times our size. Now that would be fun...

Good luck! If you have family that you can count on you are lucky! I have two sisters and one brother, The lying and stealing sure showed when my parents died! All I'm saying is [as the old saying goes] you can choose your friends , but you can not choose your family!