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Just because 2 different people have the same last name...?

by Guest57119  |  earlier

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...does that always make them related?

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  1. no it does not.

    i know that i have a very uncommon last name, but someone that is local to us has this as their last name.

    we are the only two in our phonebook that have it, but we're not related at all.


  2. No, it doesn't mean that they are related.  My own maiden name is an example.  I started researching my maiden name several years ago and from the beginning certain family members suggested we were French or Italian.  I think it is because the  final letter of the last name is o and it makes the long o sound as in the  last names ending in "eaux" or the ones ending in "ot".  Well, long story short, my family line is of Dutch descent.  I have gone back 100 years in the states and about 200 years in the Netherlands and  have found no connection to the  French Canadian line that imigrated through Canada and an italian line that  shortened the name from a much longer name to its presently used form.

    Also, many last names are  ones that were occupations like Baker, Miller, or Smith.  If you do the research on these names, you will  find that these names are  ones that have forms in many different countries.  For example, Smith also has the forms of Kowalski, Schmidt, and Smit--- all forms of the same name and occupation. It is VERY unlikely that everyone with these names are related.

    People also at times  adopted different surnames when they thought that there own surname would bring about certain prejudices.  These people usually took surnames that wouldn't readily identify them as being of a particular natonality.   I hope that this helps.

  3. No.  When I tell people my last name (which is long ....13 letters), believe it or not it seems like they always know someone with the same last name who I have never even heard of!  They can't believe, the name being so odd, that I am not related to the person they know.

  4. No, not at all! In China, there are sooooo many peopel named Chan, but most of them aren't related. A lot of people just have common last names.Lets take another common last name: Smith. You probably know more than two peopel with the last name Smith. Are they related? no. Its just a coincidence(:

  5. A lot of surnames originate from places or jobs therefore more than one person could have ended up with the same name with no blood connection at all.

    Example:

    The surname Barrow could have been given to anyone living near an ancient burial mound.

  6. No not always.  It depends on the name, it's origin, and how common it is I think.  

    Like my mom's maiden name is sort of exclusive to this one village her dad came from in Italy, so yea in that case almost all of the people with that last name are related.  But other than that example or cases like it, I can't really think of anything where it would apply.  Well, maybe if your last name was Fartina von StinkyCheeks.

  7. It's likely, but usually when you find unrelated people that have the same last name its a common last name.

    Here are some common last names:

    Smith

    Brown

    Garcia (mexican)

    and others that I can't think of at the moment...

  8. No, not at all. My last name is quite common in my country, and I don't know anyone who is my relative. It's just possible that hundreds of generations ago, the name was spread by a single clan or family, and then the family spread out or something.

  9. I have a pretty uncommon surname and though I have, in recent years, come across others with the same name, none of them have any connection to my family.

  10. Not at all.

  11. No.  I have the same last name as my ex husband, but we are no longer related LOL

  12. not at all. two of my aunts married men with the same last name and they were not related and my cousin married a guy with the same last name as hers and they were definitely NOT related haha.

  13. Nope, not always.  Back when surnames first came into use (in the 1200-1400s), many people adopted the same descriptive words as their last names.  But they weren't related to each other, and neither are their descendants today.

    Some surnames actually started out completely different, but with various spelling changes over time, ended up the same.  For example: the Boehle family from Germany and the Belinski family from Poland could've both "americanized" their surnames into Bell.

    But with a really unusual surname, the chances of being related could actually be pretty good.  My neighbor has the same uncommon surname as my grandmother, and after helping her trace her roots, we discovered that we're related... 10 generations back!

    Actually, your chances of being related to someone with a DIFFERENT surname are a lot greater than you might think!  If you were able to trace the ancestry of all of your classmates, you'd probably find that you're related in some way to quite a few of them!  The further you go back in time, the fewer people there were in the world, and many of us share common ancestors without even knowing it.
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