Are There any free websites where I can reseach my father's surname?

If it your family you are research then you don't do it using the surname in isolation....surnames have origins but they are not necessarily the same origins as the people in your family..............you start at home and look at the records your father already has which will give you more clues as well as verified records....so his marriage cert, birth cert etc will take you back to your grandparents and mor importantly you have proved via records so can cite http://familytimeline.webs.com/recordsinyourownhom... this will help you do that and then the links page has lots of links and many are free..................., depending on where you are looking will greatly depend on what websites you look at.... forums are also worth joining and are free, specific, some better than others, so when looking find ones that are used daily, not like rootsweb which are often years before you get any anwsers...some forums links also on there.....................

Mark, we work hard over here, to help people get accurate info.

Among that, is the fact that SURNAMES and genealogy are not the same thing. We hate seeing anyone misled. One good example..the name Lee is found both in England, and in China. If the name also is carried by someone who is African American, then that person is very unlikely to have ancestry from either place. Unless there is mixed ancestry (not impossible!), an African American with the name Lee adopted the name, following emancipation. Its up to you to decide if you want factual information or not.

In the 1900 census (free to research at www.familysearch.org), I immediately found a William Tobe who lived in Alabama, who is Black. I also found Walke Tobe in 1880, who is also Black. I then hopped to the 1850 census, and find persons named Tobe, who in fact gave place of birth as Germany. He wasn't Black.

Absolutely no offense meant by being open and direct. I encourage you to find your ancestry and have pride in that. Just would rather lead you to real information and not generic stuff.

http://rwguide.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

Spend a little time to investigate how you can research your ancestry. And, please, make yourself at home here, where we can give you some real help on that.

Type the following into the search: Origin of surname Tobe. If what you mean it that you want to research your fathers bloodline, then I would suggest that you

use Familysearch.org. It is free and there is a tutorial under the research tips key that might help with your search.

Just google 'tobe surname' + you will get

some hits. Also google Tobe Genealogy. Good luck

Tobe Name Meaning and History

German: habitational name from a place in Thuringia called Toba.

Frisian and Dutch: from a pet form of a Germanic personal name (see Tabbert 2), or from a derivative of the Biblical name Tobias.

Japanese: variously written, usually with characters meaning ‘door’ or ‘earth’ for the first character and ‘department’ or ‘side’ for the second. None are common in Japan.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

via

http://www.ancestry.com/facts/Tobe-family-history....

That's one of their free pages. If your picture is really you, not some movie star or major league athlete whose image you copied as a jest, your father is either part white or his slave ancestors were owned by white people named Tobe, or his slave ancestor liked the sound of the name.

There are 4500+ resolved questions of the form "How do I trace my family tree, for FREE?" in the resolved questions, if you are interested.

There are plenty of free sites to find the origin/meaning of a surname. All you need to do is google "origin of surname tobe" and you get http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Tobe

Of course, knowing the meaning/origin of a name is way short of finding one's ancestry. You need to follow the paper trail...

Familysearch.org