What is the best way to research family history so as to discover nobility?

Question

That is to say, what is the best way to determine whether or not one's family was a part of the class of nobles, or merely peasantry?

Answer 1

Good for you, sometimes learning about our 'roots' can explain traits like eye color and hair color and much more. And you don't have to be Nobility to be noble. Shirley T has the right info, but don't discount your mothers side of the family. In some cultures they use the maternal lineage, their reason being any man could be your father but you always know who your mother is.

Answer 2

Burke's Peerage and Debret are the recognised " Bibles " of families with titles and are very detailed ( http://www.burkes-peerage.net )

Answer 3

The best part of being American is not worrying about that nonsense.

Answer 4

We're all peasants now so it doesn't matter so much

Answer 5

The fastest way is to believe everything you see on the internet, even if the duke had been dead for 5 years when he sired your 4th great grandfather via the chambermaid.

The best way is to work back, one generation at a time, verifyling and checking sources.

You mentioned one surname. Unless your 4th great grandfather jumped ship on a South Pacific island populated only by dusky maidens, and all of your 3rd great grandparents were half-siblings, you should have more surnames than that in your tree.

You'll probably find someone noble. Henry II, just to name a king, would couple with any lass who would hold still for 15 minutes. If the kid was a boy who looked like him, he'd usually make him an Earl. That gave unwed mothers a heck of an incentive to tell HRH "Oh my, you royal stallion you, you've done it again", even if the dad was the assistant gardener. So, proving it is the hard part.

Answer 6

Ask family members, im related to famous Turkish and Albanian nobles, just by asking parents and looking things up, grandparents are much better, and great grandparents are a shoe in.

Answer 7

You approach it like anybody else doing genealogy.  Start with yourself and work back one generation at a time.  Don't try to start from someone in the past and work down or you will find yourself in a very tangled web.  Document everything as you work your tree.  Don't jump to conclusions.  The more documentation you have to back up your information the better.  

You might find you are descended from both nobles and peasantry.  You can't really go by a surname.  Not everyone with the same surname are necessarily related.  Also don't be taken in by surname product peddlers selling coats of arms(misnomer family crest).  They were and are granted to individuals and are passed down through the direct legitimate male line of descent.  There might have been several men with your surname, not all necessarily related, that were each granted their own coat of arms, all different. Then some persons with that surname were never granted one and their descendants are not entitled to one. Most people aren't.  Peddlers who sell them on the internet, at shopping mall, at airports, in magazines etc will not have all of them. They don't need to in order to sell to the gullible.  The only time they will have more than one is if more than one man with the same surname from more than one national origin were granted one. Then they will have one of each and there might have been more.

You need to get as much information from your living family as possible, particularly your senior members.  Tape them if they will let you.  It probably will turn out they are confused on some things but what might seem to be insignificant story telling might be very significant.

Find out if any has any old family bibles.  Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. Also, depending on the religious faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation, and marriage certificates can be helpful.

Go to your public library and find out what all they have. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can use.

If you wish to subscribe to it you can from your own home.  They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930.  The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They also have U.K. censuses through 1901.   They have military and immigration records.  They also have indexes to vital records of many states.

Just don't take as absolute fact everything you see in their family trees or family trees on ANY website, free or not free.  The trees are submitted by subscribers,folks like you and me, and most are not documented or they are poorly documented.  You might see different info on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see repeatedly the same info from different subscribers on the same people.  That is no guarantee at all it is corrrect. A lot of people copy without verifying. Use the information as CLUES as to where to get the documentation.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has records on people all over the world, not just Mormons.

In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection.  Their FHC can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee.  

I have never had them to try and convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell.  I haven't heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources.