I would like to read up more on my ancestors. I have things like names and dates but I would like to know more about them and their lives. I don't want to have to buy something like on Ancestry.

One thing I really would like to know is if they were Puritans. I noticed that some of them had virtue names like Experience, Resolved and Comfort and I knew that those were mostly Puritans that gave their children those names.

How would I be able to change my name?

I really want to change my last name. It's hyphenated with my mother and father's last name. If I wanted to get my surname changed, would I have to get approval from both parents or just one?

Same place as every other word, from language, Old English pre 7th Century language word "gos", goose, and the Old English language word "hierde", herdsman, keeper, from "heord", herd, flock so an occupational surname.

No surname EVER tells you who your ancestors were, same way as your first name tells you nothing at all about your ancestors, languages mix and are spoken, heard and influence many people, for example in the UK 700-800 years ago when surnames were taken the languages spoken was Latin, French and Old English... both Old English and French originate from Latin, as does Spanish, Portuguese etc etc , so language nor words tell you anything about who chose the word they used for a name and those languages spread, were spoken and heard throughout the world so anyone, any country in the World could have chosen that word, from that language as a name and yet have no blood ancestry in any of those counties were the language originated from.

If you wish to find your ancestry the ONLY way is to research it

Add: Additionally the Old French language given name "Gosse", a form of the word god meaning "good" and 'et' suffix means 'small one' in the Latin language

Same place as every other word, from language, Old English pre 7th Century language word "gos", goose, and the Old English language word "hierde", herdsman, keeper, from "heord", herd, flock so an occupational surname.

No surname EVER tells you who your ancestors were, same way as your first name tells you nothing at all about your ancestors, languages mix and are spoken, heard and influence many people, for example in the UK 700-800 years ago when surnames were taken the languages spoken was Latin, French and Old English... both Old English and French originate from Latin, as does Spanish, Portuguese etc etc , so language nor words tell you anything about who chose the word they used for a name and those languages spread, were spoken and heard throughout the world so anyone, any country in the World could have chosen that word, from that language as a name and yet have no blood ancestry in any of those counties were the language originated from.

If you wish to find your ancestry the ONLY way is to research it

Add: Additionally the Old French language given name "Gosse", a form of the word god meaning "good" and 'et' suffix means 'small one' in the Latin language

Javier, for the overall ancestral background testing they use Autosomal along with the X. Autosomal is not as exact as Y & Mitochondrial which have been used by people involved in genealogy for years. With each they will assign a person to a Haplogroup and show them the origin of this ancestors going back in time. However, you get each from only one person in each generation you go back. Example: You have 16 great great grandparents. If you had both Y& Mitochondrial done, 14 of them will not be included in the results.

Autosomal is what most of your DNA is but far more complicated. It determines your "looks" genetically as well as other things such as health issues. You get Autosomal 50-50 from both parents but when your parents passed on the Autosomal they received from their parents to you it went through a process called "meiosis" where it was randomly jumbled and recombined. So while you got 50% from your mother's side and 50% from your father's there usually will be a bias in what you inherited from grandmother and grandfather on both sides of the family. In other words you could have inherited anywhere from 0 to 50% from any one grandparent. The gap usually isn't that wide but not impossible. Any bias you inherited will not be how your siblings inherited it unless you have an identical twin. So here's the thing you and one of your siblings could be tested the same day with the same company and your results will not be the same. You could have received more Autosomal from a Spanish grandfather and your brother or sister could have received more from a German grandmother.

Also there are no Haplogroups with Autosomal. The only thing they can do is match you with population samples they have. It has been reported if you go to more than one company the results will vary as one might not have or be deficient in certain population samples another has and vice versa. So the accuracy can have a lot to do with the population samples any particular company has. One might be more accurate for you but another might be more accurate for someone else. You have no way to know in advance if they have just the right population samples for whatever mix you carry in your DNA.
This type of testing many of us feel has been over hyped on TV by dingbat celebrities.

The X is little different also. You got X from your mother. She got X from both her mother and her father. Whose X did she pass on to you. There is no definite pattern.

Companies most often recommended are FamilyTreeDNA, 23andme and Ancestry.com. Just don't consider it written in stone any pie charts or percentages you are furnished by any of them. Probably if you are not involved in traditional genealogy using documents/records DNA tests aren't all that useful at all.