Do you believe that everyone with the same last name as yours is related?

Question

Like my last name is Richards does that mean that i am related some how to all the Richards in the world. I think so..but others I know disagree

Answer 1

Sorry, but your belief is not correct.  The reason behind this is understanding of how last names originated.  They come from various sources, such as physical appearance, occupation, sometimes a town/village where someone came from.

One simple example is Smith. The name comes from the occupation of (black)smiths.  In one town, there clearly could be several blacksmiths.. not related at all.. but eventually, came to be known as Jack (the) Smith.

There are many other examples. One is African Americans, who after slavery ended, adopted last names, sometimes from former owners, and sometimes just at random. Obviously, there are many Afr. Amer. with the same name as mine, but no relationship at all. Just coincidence.

SOMETIMES with rare names.. people will happen to be related, but only because it can be verified that all come from the same ancestor.

I could give more explanations.. but the basic line is that persons with the same name will NOT always come from some single ancient ancestor.  Just isn't so.  

Answer 2

My surname is a very specific place name. So far, I have seen no one with this surname who can trace their family back to the 1650's who had ancestors coming from elsewhere.

This situation is not iron-clad proof that a separate line of the name did not evolve independently elsewhere, but it sure made the research easier.

The more common occupation names can be are real bear. Your Richards surname is probably patronymic for "Son of Richard," which was a common forename before surnames even existed.

Happy hunting. Roll up the sleeves and trace the paper trail step by step. Good luck.

Answer 3

No sorry.

My husband's family name is common. When we did the DNA testing to find which other's he matched, there were many many other people who tested their DNA and didn't match at all, meaning there is no relation, even though the last name was the same

Answer 4

i wish!

Answer 5

Of course not, unless you go back to Noah, if you are a strict Christian, or the band that walked out of Africa 20,000 - 40,000 years ago, if you believe the anthropologists.

Everyone named Richards had an ancestor named Richard, and when they started using last names, they called his son Richard's Son, which got shortened to Richards.

If everyone who had the last name was related, Robert E. Lee would have a million Chinese cousins, and everyone named "Baker" would have descended from the only man in England who knew how to bake.

Robert E. Lee has no Chinese cousins. Many men in England knew how to bake; when people started using last names, they called those men Baker, sometimes. Sometimes they called them Richardson.

Answer 6

No, you are not. At least not for that reason.  First, that would imply that you and all Richards come from the same background.  Consider how a last name came about in the first place.  Take, for example, the name Johnson.  It derived by a person literally being John's son (the son of John).  How many John's do you suppose there were in those days?  Tons.  And they were not all related.  Since multiple families established the name Johnson, that does not make all Johnson's related to each other.

Also, consider that many, many families have acquired a last name, for whatever reason, that has nothing to do with the origins of the last name.  Slaves, for example, in the 1800's often adopted the surname of their owner.  As we all know, most slaves were brought over from Africa, but most slave owners were of European ancestry.  So now you have tons of African American families with European names, but they do not have European heritage, and they are not related to all other people who have that same last name either.

many immigrants to the US had strong accents.  They were difficult to understand, so their names were spelled to the best ability of the census takers.  This often led to a name being practically changed completely.  Many immigrants changed their name on purpose to something that was "Americanized" and the new name is not related in any way to the old name, and this does not make those people suddenly related to everyone else with that las name.

Many names do not come from one source but were established from several different sources.

So, as you can see, there are many reasons for how names came to be, and many ways families ended up with the name they got.  You cannot say that you are related to everyone with the same last name, by that reason alone.

However, mathematically, we are ALL related, regardless of our last name, because thousands of years ago, there were not nearly as many people on earth, but the 6 billion we have now all came from somewhere.  Using small numbers, lets say there were only 5 people on the planet then, and now there is 100.  For 5 people to create 100 people means that all 100 are most likely related.  It would be virtually impossible for them to not be related.