Lizzie, I tried LDS and could not find any info on my family!
But thanks anyhoo for the LDS site, it's a good one just not for my history. Maybe I was doimg something wrong, but it's pretty straight forward...
I also had some bit of trouble, getting started on LDS, Jacks'thunder. Finally came down to a cousin in Wales, doing it for me, so I could go on from there. Do keep trying though. Try to start with the oldest ancestor you know about. It really is worth it in the end and I believe you can ask for help, if you cannot get started.
You can also look at Genuki. They have wonderful mailing lists studying just the surnames you are trying to trace. Years ago, this is how I discovered several living rellies, who I had not known existed. They helped me piece together much of what I now know about my ancestors. Rootsweb is another good option. Joining mailing lists can often bring in tons of help from others across the world.
If you are studying a very common name, it becomes more difficult to get started on the right track. Sending for birth and marriage certificates, helps. Years ago, when I belonged to Ancestry dot com, I found whom I thought was my own grandfather. Someone had written several generations there. I was excited. I was looking for 4 generations of 'William Martin' fellows. Martin is as common as Smith, in Cornwall. I copied what I had found, thinking it to be true and researched and followed one of them, for almost two years. Only after wasting all that time, did I find that I was following the incorrect line of Martins. This is the problem with Ancestry. They do no research of their own. It is always what people out there like you and me, write down and make public. Ancestry then contacts you and says they have found a match or matches to someone you have written. Professional genealogist s kept telling me to forget Ancestry and I came to realise, they were right. I had actually written several generations of what I thought was my own family at the time and I know many others copied it, thinking it was true, but as I discovered later, much was not. So out there now, and especially in the thousands of Martin families from Cornwall, there is completely untrue information which I had written and still on Ancestry. I am no longer a paid member there, but do keep my family tree there, which is free. This purely for my own benefit to add or discount as I research, but it is no longer public. If I make a mistake, I don't want others copying it and thinking it true. Obviously if one can see printed governament records there, that someone has made public, then it can be believed.
Regardless though of where one searches, it takes patience and years of work, to discover each and every line in one's background. It is fun though and along the way, sometimes we find cousins and second cousins etc., we didn't even know.
Quick story. About ten years ago, a lady in San Diego, purchased a box of old photos at a thrift shop. On the back of these photos, there was the name of the people, where and when it was taken etc. etc. She looked up my name on some genealogy studies on the net and contacted me. She told me she 'thought', she had found many portraits of my ancestors, taken in Cornwall, before they left for America. She very kindly sent them all to me and would take nothing for them. Comparing them to names I already knew and with some photos belonging to some cousins I had met on the net, it turned out, that I now own original pics of several of my ancestors and other relatives. Many in the UK, had professional portraits done, before they left for the US. They have become great treasures to me and to leave for my granddaughters.
Lizzie
and two were from the same country, so I'm 1/2 Czechloslovokian, 1/4 German and 1/4 Danish. It's funny how genes work, though, because by looks I very much favor the Danish side. As for heritage, my Czech family is just a tiny bit less crazy than the Greek family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I grew up in a Czech neighborhood in the Chicago area, went to Czech school as a child (don't remember anything other than cuss words and body parts now), and know how to cook most traditional Czech dishes. I think I'm the last generation to understand and live with this rich heritage.
) and I too have always asserted that I inherited my love of horse from those genes. 
