Later on, these names changed to John White, John Long and John Young. Other names derived from an ancestor's distinguishing traits are Baines, which means 'bones' and describes a thin man, Armstrong, Black and Longfellow. Occupation Another common source for surnames is an individual's trade. John the carpenter, John the cook and John the smith later on became Messrs. Begin the process with your own name, after which, try to work backwards to the name of your parents and then the names of the parents of your parents, and so on. Check with legal documents It would be best to look for your own birth certificate as this basically contain the names of your parents as well as the dates of their births. If you're thinking of doing a genealogy search to find out more about your family tree, here are a few tips how: Start your genealogy search with the nearest source. That's your family. Ask your parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. Start with what is current and then work backwards. Look at family Bibles, birth, death and marriage certificates, diaries, letters, military certificates and scrapbooks. Also, there are various classes offered by many family history centers. These classes offer research genealogical topics which could further assist you in your family history search. Family history centers are also able to give you referrals to other archives, libraries or institutions that could assist you in your search. MyTrees.com- they have the so-called Ancestry Archive Search, MyTrees Plus (Search and Results), vital records and genealogy from countries like the U.S., New Zealand and Canada. There is also a death index for Social Security. AncestrybyDNA.com- this is different from other genealogical sites because this focuses on genetic genealogy. It boasts of 1.8 billion names so far and offers resources for genealogy searches. Learn more about genealogy through their Learning Library, check out other family trees and browse through historical records online. You can search for surnames at no cost, although you'll need an online subscription to take a look at other family trees.