Comments on: Ask Mike: Sharing the same last name

By: Bernard Collins

Bernard Collins — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:28:42 +0000

Hi,
A lady in January doesn’t know Howard . I know a few Howard people in O’BriensBridge,Co.Clare Ireland.
And i know the Slater family that live in Murroe,Co.Limerick Ireland also.Hope this helps.

By: Dougiepoos

Dougiepoos — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:05:15 +0000

Anyone here have an ancestor that was a miller?

By: Alena Jane

Alena Jane — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 09:11:34 +0000

i would really like to know if this comment is true/false

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:32:54 +0000

I think everyone who has my uncommon last name is related. My grandfather made an extensive family tree with everyone in it all the way back 200 years ago when my Great-Great-Great grandparents came here from Germany.

By: Furubayashi

Furubayashi — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:27:25 +0000

My maiden name is really rare, I’m almost positive I’m related to everyone with this name in Hawaii (where I’m from) and Utah and there’s a really good chance the ones in California too. There’s a family in Seattle I’m not sure about though. This makes genealogy work really annoying because there’s not a lot of people working on this name and it’s Japanese so I can’t even read some of the older documents! But I’m moving to Japan soon so maybe I can learn enough of the language to figure out the paper work I do have.

By: Alyson Indursky

Alyson Indursky — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:59:20 +0000

I haven’t met a lot of people with my last name. I’m only a teen, so I never got too into Geneology, but I did a litttle searching. I found a good amount of people with my last name, but also with different spellings (i.e. Indurski). I’m about nine different nationalities, but one of them is Russian. I know that’s where my surname came from, because there is a river in Russia named the Indurs River. I guess everyone around that area had my last name, but I’m not sure. When I searched on the Ellis Island website, I found a lot of people from Germany, Russia, and Poland with my last name came over around early 1900′s late 1800′s. [[I am German and Polish too.]] They had some different spellings, but weren’t too different. A lot of people have asked me and my family if we were related to ‘so-and-so’ [[a lot of them rich doctors and lawyers who want nothing to do with us middle clas family]] and we know we are, but then there are people from Israel [[which I know I may have ties in, seeing how everyone from my Grandpa up was Jewish]] who contacted me on Facebook. I think I might be related to a lot of them, if not all, but I just can’t get enough records. I can’t even get past my great great grandparents, nonetheless people from different countries. My last name is an uncommon one, so I just say these people are somehow related to me. =)

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:18:08 +0000

I too have a some what weird last name. Hurt. According to my father we are from German/Swedish heritage and along the line somewhere they shortened it from Hurtack to Hurt. I have only met a handful of people with the same last name as me.

By: aznfoxdemon2

aznfoxdemon2 — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:26:59 +0000

here’s the way it works for some of the big Chinese last names :

If an emperor or some high-ranking noble has a certain last name, they can ‘give’ that last name to other people they favor as a ‘gift’ or other people would take on their last name because they want to seem like they have some sort of connection to that noble. Wayyy back in the past all the people in a town or tribe could’ve also had the same last name.

Basically, if you have a really common last name, chances are somewhere in the past there was royalty with that last name.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:22:51 +0000

I have an odd last name myself. My mom is heavy into ancestory.com. She is constantly trying to find people in her family as well as my dads family. Tonight I did an internet search on my name and found a book written by a man with both my first and last name. It was unbelieveable to see and I just burst out laughing. It’s funny the things you’ll find when you least expect to find them. It definitely was a major lift to my spirits.

By: Harley

Harley — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:18:41 +0000

I am shocked that the author of this article failed to mention how slavery had a dramatic effect on the surnames of millions of Americans. It’s shameful but it’s also an important part of history. Most importantly, it’s factual and true and as such needs to be reported.
The moment we forget history is the same moment that we begin to repeat it’s mistakes.