Is it possible to assume that people who has the same last name as you, that you two are related?

Question

Just Wondering.

Answer 1

Not as a general rule, But if you have a very rare surname then the odds are that there is a link.  All the people I have found with my surname spelling seem the have a common ancestor.

Answer 2

It's possible but not a safe assumption at all. Another example is the Ellis Island entry into America. If you didn't speak English or had an accent you could be assigned a last name. Officials would assign a name based on what they could know about you, so it's not improbable that 82 people entering the same week from 5 different countries and various original surnames got the new last name "Brown" because they had brown hair, or carried a brown bag, or had an accent and said their name was Braun and the official misheard.

Answer 3

thats nuts.theres probley a million people in the usa with the last name smith,or jones,or young,somethign common liek that.doesn't mean they are ken.

also,people can get a legal name change.

do you want a lot of family or something?

Answer 4

It just does not work that way.  Race is only used as one illustration.

The idea that there is some way-back, single ancestor of all people named Lee, or <fill in the blank>, is shown, over and over, to not be correct.  

In SOME cases.. if a person has a common name, and for some reason.. it gets "changed", then you may be able to show all persons having that name to descend from him.  Example.. Clem Dauphinais came to Minn, and the name got garbled to Dolphay. All Dolphays descend from him.. they are related.

It is not normally that way.  Genealogy is not assumed.. it always uses records to prove relationships.  

Answer 5

Well it probably is possible, but impossible at the same time. Some people have the same name, but are different races. So you do the math.

Answer 6

nope

but maby few times yes  

  moore one of the biggest last namnes out there millions of ppl not all them is gonna be related to u

Answer 7

Absolutely not.  Most people in Europe did not have a surname until the last millennium.  In England they generally had one by the end of the 14th century. They were based on a) being the son of someone b)their occupation c)where they lived d)some characteristic about them.  

When they got through it wasn't impossible for legitimate sons of the same man to have a different surname and still they could have each shared their surname with others not in their family.

It was a few more centuries before the same surname, in many cases, was passed down to the following generations.

Now, some will say we are all related if you view the human race as coming down from a single set of parents.  So, in that case, a person can say not everyone shares the same root person of their surname with others with the same surname.

One of the mistakes a person can make in starting out in genealogy is to get too involved in the origin of their name. Genealogy means tracing your ancestry starting with yourself and working back one generation at a time. Also,  a lot of people get taken advantage of by surname product peddlers like coats of arms(misnomer family crest). There are those who sell them on the internet, at shopping malls, at airports, in magazines and solicit by mail like they belong to everyone with the same surname and they don't.

Answer 8

I would say the chance that two people with the same name are related are about the same chance that two people with different names are related.  It is a matter of looking up your history and trying to see if you have common ancestors. Of course if you have a name that is very uncommon the chances might increase a little bit. Like all people with the surname Genzoli are related.  They all originated in one small location in Switzerland.

Genzoli

founder California Genealogy Club

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/california...

Answer 9

Not really.  The surnames may have been chosen somewhere back in the past because of an occupation, a town, some geological formation that identified the location where they lived, some physical characteristic of the person choosing the name.  Surnames haven't always been used to designate which family someone belonged to.  

Where I live now, there is a fairly large population of black families whose last name is the same as my maiden name.  The ones who are related are descended from slaves who were owned by a white family of that surname.  My own ancestors - and yes, we're just as white as white can be - came to the US from Ireland and arrived here long after the slaves who were the ancestors of this other family.  In fact, my ancestors of this name were never in this state.

And think of all the families who chose as their surname something like Johnson (because the one who chose the name was John's son).  There were lots of people who were the sons of men named John, who weren't otherwise related.

Finding someone with the same last name is always fun.  In hearing their family stories, sometimes you do discover a connection.  Other times, there's no connection, but you've made a new friend and heard some fascinating stories.  And maybe gotten a few hints about other locations to look for any of your own missing ancestors, just in case.

Answer 10

No. I had an experience that will illustrate. My great grandfather was named Cornelius and this guy's great grandfather was named the same. We thought we were related until I did some digging and found out otherwise.