Where can I find out my family history? Or better, my family's coat of arms?

I changed the question.

KL, the majority of families really don't have a coat of arms. but you certainly can find a company that will tell you that you have a family coat of arms, and will graciously sell you a nice one on really nice paper, One of those companies told me wonderful things about how important my family was in Italy. My family comes from Macedonia and Hungary, and from Russia and Central Asia before that. They left centuries before Marco Polo got to Asia. The only connections I have to Italy are a fondness for pizza, an Italian saloon singer, and a cousin who went to university there one semester and stayed for a few years. Capisce?

Start on the family history with "interviewing" the living generations, your folks, grandparents, aunts/uncles. etc. If your family ever kept a "Family Bible", see if you can track that down, it might have generations of births, marriages and deaths noted... look through the old photo albums, not just for the pictures but for wedding invitations, travel itineraries and news clippings...If your grandparents and their siblings are still living, ask them about their youth (if it's okay with them, record their stories- these oral histories are priceless) all of this will be interesting, in and of itself, and will provide you with a great many names for when you are ready to start climbing the family tree in earnest- The more names and dates you already know, the easier it is to be sure you're researching the right family... an awful lot of names repeat and I've heard of people spending months on a genealogy project only to find that they were looking at the wrong tree.

Dorian is correct about the Coats of Arms and Family Crests... most families can't lay honest claim to such decorations and if your family DOES have a crest, the best way to find it is to simply climb the family tree- if it is there, you'll find it sooner or later.
Happy Hunting!

Yeah, I found one site that states mine is a Scottish origin, but I know that my dad's side of the family is all Germanic. The Scottish I have comes from my mother's side.

I know of one advantage I already have in tracing the men in my family; that is the son's first name matches the father's first name.

Hi Kael,

Just a couple of suggestions:

We recently started a historical society in our township, and an idea that I want to implement is to interview seniors that grew up in my community and tape those interviews. Their stories are invaluable and to actually have their voices on record would be a wonderful thing.
I was thinking you could perhaps do this with your nearest relatives, if you can get them to agree to it. Use that as a starting point.

Another thing regarding records from Scotland and Europe that I thought of, is when you have, as MrsS says, got as many names as you can find on your own, then you could possibly contact distant relatives in the UK and Germany. Parish records are also helpful here.
People arrived in north America by ship from all parts of Britain, and shipping records sometimes help.
Just scanning the web, there seem to be numerous web sites that give you tips on how to trace your ancestors in Europe.

Good luck with this. Like I said, start with the people that are closest to you, and record their memories and work out from there. dg