Trying to Understand how Nixon fits into the clan system

[Steve Ashton]

Honestly, the best way to do your search is to get off the web for now.

Do your genealogy. A genealogy is not a google search, it is a paper chase. You start with one piece of paper, say your birth certificate. That gives you your parents names, perhaps where they were married or where they are from. Then you go to that place and find the next piece of paper in the line. Your parents birth certificates, tax records, deeds, old family bibles, any document.

This leads you down a trail of paper from you, back along your ancestors.

Remember that if you go back even 5 generations you have 32 grandparents with 32 different names from 32 different places.

Following just your current last name is only one of those 32 lines from which you are descended.

The spelling of last names is one of those things that is very hard to keep straight. Even as recent as the American Civil War 5-8 generations) most people did not read or write. If they wanted to send a letter they dictated it to someone who could write and that person would write what they thought they heard. Spelling of a name can change with just one document such as an Ellis Island Immigration form where the clerk was processing thousand of people a day with all sorts of accents.

Typing your current last name into a computer is a very poor way to do a genealogy. There can be many tens of thousands of people with the same last name.

The House of Names and wiki are notoriously poor reference materials. The only real way to know where you come from is to do a genealogy. Many people find it a rewarding hobby and it can take a lifetime.