Where I can research my surname for free?

Decide first if you are researching your family tree or you are researching a word ( which is all a surname is) called etymology ( word history) and tells you ZERO about who your ancestors were or where they came from, at best it will tell you the language heard, spoke or influenced the first to take that word as a surname. So no different to researching the first name John and thinking you will find out anything at all about ancestry from it

If you are word hunting, so wanting to find out the language, then you also need to understand something about history http://familytimeline.webs.com/originsofsurnames.h... so for example the languages of the day when the British Isles took surnames about 800 or so years ago was French, English and Latin so lots of surname were from those languages doesn't mean the people were eg French, British or Roman

You can look it up in the Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press on

http://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=Pyant

for free (some of Ancestry's pages are free; this is one)

but they don't have and entry for it.

You can look it up on

https://familysearch.org/search/

for free. Check the box that says "Match all terms exactly" and you'll see records from all over the world. (or at least, the USA, Canada and Europe.)

They only have 1,118 records for it, which means it is awfully rare. (By contrast, they have over 28,000,000 for "Smith". Here are the collections in the BMD category that have 10 or more records. I'd say most of the Pyants came from England and Wales.

England and Wales Birth Registration Index, 1837-2008

78 results

England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005

75 results

North Carolina Birth Index, 1800-2000

56 results

England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007

32 results

United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014

30 results

Find A Grave Index

27 results

United States Social Security Death Index

27 results

Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2013

18 results

North Carolina Deaths, 1931-1994

17 results

Georgia Death Index, 1933-1998

14 results

Michigan Deaths and Burials, 1800-1995

12 results

Michigan Deaths, 1867-1897

11 results

In both cases, you are NOT DOING research / genealogy.

The specific definition of genealogy is tracing your ANCESTRY, by the use of valid documents. It is not "doing a family tree", where the implication is that all persons in the tree, are your ancestors. They may be related..but that is a totally different concept. Genealogy goes "back".

Saying that you have to update it when brother's baby is born is indication of you not understanding genealogy. You may/ may not keep track of all living persons in your family.. but that is not genealogical research. You were not born to your brother, he is not an ancestor.

2nd.. genealogy is not about where a surname came from. Ever. One illustration (and it happens frequently) is using documents to prove who your (say) gr grandparents were.. and learning that gr grandpa was actually the 2nd husband, and NOT THE FATHER of the child... even though he might have adopted the child, or the child may have informally assumed use of the last name. So.. the child may have used the name Pylant (just for discussion) when his father was actually named Garcia. As one poster points out.. some names are rare and can be traced to a specific location. It STILL MISSES THE FACT that the origin of the name has nothing to do with proving a valid ancestral relationship.

Nothing prevents you from making some pretty chart for the wall, including all the uncles, cousins and grandbabies. Nothing prevents you from spending hours to debate if Lee comes from England or China (hint.. it comes from both).

Neither of what you are doing, is finding YOUR ANCESTORS. You certainly can waste your energy any way you want. But.. understand that you are just confusing several topics.

Surname origin is the number one myth in genealogy.

By the way.. doing valid research, you can/ will find where Dad's gr grandfather was in fact born. A place of birth is ONE LOCATION, and is exactly that.. place of birth. THAT is how you find out. Not "we have been told".

Researching surnames IS NOT genealogy. Not everyone with the same surname shares the same ancestors. They weren't started in Europe until the first part of the last millennium and the purpose was not to identify a man as a member of a family but just to better identify him on records, frequently for taxation. Too many men with the same given name in the same town or village and they had to have a better way to sort them out. When they got through legitimate sons of the same man could have wound up with a different surname and still each could have shared his with others with no known relationship.

Also understand your ancestry doubles each generation you go back, 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents, 32 great great great grandparents, 64 great great great great grandparents and so on. Probably only one person in each generation had your surname but all of them contributed to your ancestry.

If you're not bibliophobic, you can find books on the history of names at a library. Two good ones for you would be _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ by Reaney & Wilson and _dictionnaire étymologique des noms de famille et prénoms de France_ by Dauzat. If you can't deal with printed matter, try some of the appropriate articles in the Medieval Names Archive, at https://www.s-gabriel.org/names/

It originated in France and then people migrated across the world. To establish where your Pyants came from, you need to search birth, marriages and deaths starting from the people you know. Getting hold and seeing actual certificates will cost money.

The Family Search website can be useful, but some records are pay only.

https://familysearch.org/

Check your local public library. Other local libraries might have something as well. There is usually a genealogy society that can be reached through a library.

Geneology.com

Just google "name search" and try the first few that pop up.

familysearch.org