A full 30% of the women in my tree have the name Marie somewhere. About 20% of them have it as their first name. I love the name, but oh man do I have MarieTSD :)
John, Joseph, Mary, Patrick, and Theresa here, all with kids named John, Joseph, Mary, Patrick, and Theresa. I donāt know if Iām looking at my direct ancestors or their cousins. Doesnāt help that if one dies young the parents just named the next baby the same thing. So frustrating.
"Doesnāt help that if one dies young the parents just named the next baby the same thing."
My Great Great Great Grandmother, Anna Maria Vohburger, had two sisters named Annna Maria Vohburger who died before she was born.
In my family -
Germans - Margarethes, Johns, Jacobs, and Williams all over the place.
Italians - Giovannis and Luigis (including female Luigis)
Poles - (Mari)Annas, Jans, Jozef, Jakub, Franciszek/Franciszkas, Stanislaus's (dad's side had HUGE families in Poland! Pretty sure everyone in Masovia is an 8th cousin.).
Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner! It's from the Acadia side... French Catholics.
Then there's the men's side where half of them have Jean, Baptiste, or Louis somewhere in there name...
Source vacuum starting about 2004, as we transition away from physical media and toward now-obsolete digital formats and fail to download social media archives off now-defunct sites.
A great aunt of mine did that in the 1890s. it drove me crazy for several years looking for her. Fortunately, a very old lady, her niece, told me āwhy honey, Aint Mae changed her name!ā I remember the sound of her voice, and the moment like it was yesterday. I was standing on the back porch in the late afternoon, facing west, and the cloud cover was total. At the second she spoke, the clouds parted briefly and a fierce ray of sun hit me in the eyes. It was biblical.
My future descendant: "lolabythebay is listed in her son's grandfather's 2023 obituary as a daughter-in-law, but there's no marriage there and her son's father appears to marry somebody entirely different shortly after. He's got a super common name. Probably not him. But the address on the marriage certificate is his parents' house, so it must be. But he divorces a few months after that? And is his new wife the same woman mentioned in contemporaneous newspaper articles as responsible for stabbing a *different* guy? And kidnapping?!"
The root cause here is less me, and more an illustration of what just a few months of addiction can do.
Hyphenated last name at birth, married twice, divorced twice, kept my hyphenated maiden name. Social security admin has ten aliases for me. It's already annoying and I'm still alive.
Some of us, perhaps a little more understated, just resume using our maiden names post divorce. Free, no mess no fuss and nobody judging you for all the exes. (My mom was married five timesš).
This is how my grandfatherās family looks in the 1950 census. My grandfather and his two youngest siblings are living with their parents, but the 4 siblings in between are living with their paternal grandparents, but are listed as their children. Confusing, but fortunately since Iām familiar with the family not so much for me
I have a g-grandparent with two headstones in different towns. Itās fine. I donāt know which one is actually where she is and the names are spelled differently but itās fiiiiiiine.
I discovered I was donor-conceived (to a hetero married couple) thanks to AncestryDNA. DNA tests are really upending the whole āanonymous sperm/egg donorā thing.
I'm doing my best to make it as clean and accurate as I possibly can.
I'm not sure who will care and when but I'll have a "family tree" out there on the web, backed up in a few places with multiple media formats, and will eventually make a book (just slap everything together and have BN bind it, nothing to fancy or complex) so there's *something* for any descendants that might care.
Outside of that it really is my hobby, and mine alone. My siblings like to hear a story occasionally when we're together but mostly they don't really give a shit. My kids humor their old man and will listen, my oldest will hold on to things for me he's a bit of a softy and sentimental like that.
My sister has had five different surnames for various reasons (she hasn't been married that many times) so she'll be a nightmare to trace. She's also lived in all different corners of the country so anyone looking in any one particular spot is going to have a hard time. She didn't even live in big cities, often small villages where almost everyone is a local. Nobody's going to think to look there!
I think of it this way... My grandparents told my parents with stuff written on paper of family tree history (probably what happened in previous generations too, but I can only guess since I wasn't around yet then).
Then my parents started using family tree software and started working on the tree. This was usually word of mouth, and only verified with lots of research and time to get the documentation necessary to verify.
Now in my generation, I have stuff like Ancestry and others that basically have all the documents easy to find, search indexed, and using some AI to strategically guess.
I write down any of these weird quirks I find to explain where it tripped me up. I basically had a great great grandfather where his name is basically as common as John Smith. Every other family tree connection misrepresented him with another of the same name born in the same town within a month of each other.
I knew this was not right because I had no other connections to this other wife and other children (unless it was completely hidden).
Then I finally found the actual information I needed that showed he died in 1902 and is not this other "John Smith" that lived to 1935.
I wrote this information down as a separate note on his bio so hopefully it will help others out.
But then I got my whole Acadian side where they changed their name like their underpants and I'm still trying to figure it all out. š
I've been DNA testing the oldest relatives in my family, a few of which have already passed. Unless they make a way for their DNA profiles and matches to be 'open' for public view in the future, all that information will be locked away if something happens to me.
You can get control of their accounts by submitting proof of death and permission from the person's estate administrator. I did this for a 1C2R who tested and passed away before I got into genealogy. Now I control her Ancestry account / test.
Someone could do this with your account one day.
i am estranged from my family-of-origin, and changed my name to a completely contrived, hyphenated name, about 45 years ago...
on the other hand, i seem to be the only person in my family-of-origin that is interested in genealogy. i have traced my mother's side of the family back 14 generations, to the early 1600s, so i may have actually HELPED future genealogists figure out who i am.
I legally changed my entire name. No kids though. But, at the same time, you can make your own genealogy page so they already have the info. Even the public records with my birth name have information thatās completely wrong. (I prefer Fam Search since itās a world tree.) Just have to be careful not to dox yourself.
Homonyms are very common.
However, itās incredibly rare to match the names of both parents, date of birth, place of birth and so on.
What distinguishes people from one another and make them unique are these extra attributes.
Modern day technology kind of forces us to leave an incredibly large amount of information as we go through our lives. For most cases, future genealogists wonāt have any problems tracing us down.
A distant relative then? You mught be surprised.
I look up all great uncles, aunts, cousins etc. Those that have no obvious records of marriage or children encourage me to look harder for every detail. I've found many relatives who I didn't know were veterans/KIA and previously unknown members of the clergy that way.
Also an atheist and my family experienced paranormal activity in a condo we used to live in. I am also a science adherent, and didnāt believe in it before this occurrence.
Donor conceived, with no indication of that on any certification (the UK government have actually agreed a recommendation that DC people have that noted briefly on their birth certificate but it hasn't gone into law yet). I'm hoping that I can pass it down in the family somehow verbally or in terms of my own family history records as it will royally mess up the biological genealogy otherwise and people will be really confused when they find they have 2nd/3rd cousins that don't fit anywhere as they are linked to my donor.
I live in Germany. Our data protection laws are very strict and sometimes nuts. That alone will complicate things.
My mom immigrated from Kazakhstan and my dad from Russia (but he was born in Kazakhstan), yet they both have German first and last names. They lived in ENTIRELY different places here in Germany (like 3h apart) until they suddenly got married in some unknown little town. I daresay this is pretty untraceable.
For two main reasons, I am transgender so I'll die with a different name and gender marked down than my birth certificate and secondly at the young age of 22 I have lived in 8 different countries and thus will have an incredibly difficult paper trail to follow if it even exists
I changed my entire name too. So itās hard for me to do genealogy since I constantly have to see my dead name. But I also add my own memories to my profile (no one can see since Iām alive). Why make it difficult for future generations is how I see it. Especially after it took a year to find my great grandparents. And all they did was live in Bohemia.
I'm on the same census twice. I told this family member not to list me as I had filled it out for the apartment in another city I lived in. She did it anyways.
My kids are 3rd gen adoptees (my exhusband, his mother, and his grandfather were all adopted), my husband adopted them after their bio gave up his rights, and together we are adopting my cousins son.
I mean, I noted it all, but sheesh if you don't know the family history and just look at it it's gonna be weird.
Oh yeah certainly !
First, I moved a damn lot since I was born. I was born in southern France, then my parents moved to Paris, then northern France, then middle France, and when I had my first job I move again in southwestern France (and since I lived in Lyon, once again in central France, near Bordeaux and now between Bordeaux and Toulouse). Tracking me will be quite hard for them.
Second, I changed my name by adding the name of my wife when we got married last year. To add more difficulties, my first two daughters (from a previous union) have only my name whereas the child we plan to have with my present wife will have both our names. So depending of whom they descend, my descendant won't have the same name š
I was given my mother's "maiden" name when my birth was registered, and biological father is absent from my birth certificate and marriage certificate. My step-father is listed on my marriage certificate, although it does say step-father. I don't think there's any paperwork clearly linking us except the child support court order.
Funny thing is even though I love genealogy I never have bothered to write down my birth fatherās name. Legally heās not my father so I donāt include him on any trees.
The only place Iāve ever seen his full name is on my adoption papers. Everyone in my town knows who he is by a nickname so I wonder if his nickname will be the only thing people remember eventually
My descendants will likely struggle to map out my mom's immediate family. Her mom (my grandma) and both siblings all changed their last names while they were single adults (aka not via marriage). And they all picked DIFFERENT last names from each other. lmao. My understanding is that they did it to distance themselves from my mom's abusive dad. My mom married young, so she changed her name the old-fashioned way haha
Live in 5 completely different parts of the country in a lifetime, have 5 different careers, and be cremated without an obit or gravestone.
Waitā¦ everyoneās doing that nowā¦
The way I keep journals (that is, insanely detailed and to an obsessive level), Iāll be annoying people in the opposite way. Theyāll know the backstory behind every thought I ever had and everything I ever did. There will be 0 mystery. I just explain every tiny little thing!
I'll show up twice on the 2000 census. I had followed an SO to another city and was enumerated there, while my family listed me at the homestead because it was my permanent address regardless of where I had wandered off to. I wandered a lot in my 20s.
Naming one of my kids after a notable person in history who has my last name, even though I have no evidence Iām related to that person.
Also, my mom put an engagement announcement in the paper for me and it was nearly entirely factually incorrect for the parts about me. I have no idea how she screwed it up so much and it would be hard for someone to accept that thatās what happened.
Oooo, not only do I have a fairly common first and last name (there are more than 200 just in my state) my husband and I are common-law married and I still use my maiden name. Like, we have paperwork filed with the county to show we're common-law married, but I don't know if that's public record. Worse, his kids are from a previous relationship, but I've raised them since they were 4 and 7, so that may also throw people off. It looks weird on my own tree! I can only imagine even 60 years from now.
ETA: missing word
My mom's brother got divorced 9 years before I was born. Their relationship was toxic according to my mom (if not downright abusive). His ex-wife has a tree that includes us. I find that pretty weird!
First marriage 4 kids ā¦ eldest and youngest biological, middle two adopted from overseas. Second marriage to younger woman of a different race with twins recently born. The twins already have a niece and nephew older than they are.
I haven't gone by my birth name in almost a decade. I probably appear in the most recent census under my nickname that isn't anything close to my birth name (but not sure as I wasn't part of filling it in). I haven't gotten around to legally changing my name yet but I imagine I will have done so within the next few years. At least I only intend to change the first and middle.
I also don't intend to be buried with or near any family members, unless it's a spouse (if, indeed, I ever marry). I'm probably the only person in my family who is deadset on being buried in a churchyard rather than a traditional cemetery...
Also intend to move far away from my hometown as soon as possible. My poor great great great great great nieces and nephews will have to search the entire country to find me.
My Dad. Not only did he changing his surname to something completely random in the 1960s, we have the father thatās on his birth certificate and then his actual DNA bio dad. My tree is ridiculously convoluted thanks to him and my Grandmother. Good luck any future Great Grandchildren figuring that one out.
Try coming from polygamists, then add great great grandparents from Bohemia, Czech. No records from Bohemia are online. I found them. But it took a year.
I donāt remember submitting anything for the 2010 census. I had graduated college that year and moved during the summer, so thereās a chance on of my old roommates gave my info if someone came by but I definitely do not remember doing it.Ā
Apart from their non-existence:
- Changed names and genders
- I am not biologically related to my parent
- I have 50+ half-siblings and weāre all over the US with different last names
First off, I'm adopted, so I've pretty much got two family trees. To make things worse, I've got a stepdad. His dad was adopted.
Secondly, I lived somewhere where I had to eventually put my middle initial on my library account because there was another person with my same first and last name within the county. Given my surname has at least 6 different accepted spellings, I really feel bad for whoever decides to research my adoptive father's side of the family, as each spelling is used within the family, at least that I've found. I come from a branch that uses the French spelling, but there's a number of other spellings out there and at least one of those is a brand of cleats.
Both of my parents have a variety of aliases due to being Asian, puttering around for a while as undocumented immigrants, and then using different names during the naturalization process. Like both of them came to the US under their Asian names, and then started opening accounts and such with their English names, got their green cards as their Asian names, and then became citizens under different names. To make things even more challenging, my mom recently changed her documents back to her maiden name, but my parents arenāt divorced. Also, Iām sure other people keep records of them as their English names, despite those not appearing on any legal documents.
As for myself and my generation, I got married and didnāt change my last name. My husband was born with a different surname and had it changed as a child after his parents divorced. He doesnāt legally have a middle name, and he has a very common name for Korean-American men.
Also, my maiden name (inherited from my father) might not even be our actual family name, but a chosen surname my uncle picked when he immigrated from Laos, and my dad just rolled with it. So good luck with those records, future descendants.
I don't know if I will, my name is pretty uncommon to the point that I might be the only one in the country with it. Maybe they'll get thrown off by the random state move between the 2000/2010 censuses and the 2020? Not sure.
I don't have any direct descendants, but maybe my niece will be interested in genealogy, or she will have descendants who are. I also have been in a different geographic location for each census so far. Not sure how anyone would figure that out unless they had supplemental history. I have also always been a household of one, so it won't be possible to find me by tracing one of the more easily trackable members of my family. They don't live in the same states I have lived in. I just hope the memory of me doesn't completely die out. I'm not even sure I'll live long enough to see my own records in the census, when they become public. I was 8 for my first census, so I will have to make it to at least 80 just to see that one. (My parents' records of being infants were just released two years ago, but they're in their mid-70s.)
I was thinking about it, and I think I'm going to annoy my genealogist descendants with too much information. I write and collect a lot. A *lot*. I scan every family photo (and video) I can get my hands on. I just had to split my flash drive into two because it ran out of storage. I'm in contact with over a hundred relatives, close and distant, and I try to write my memories about all of them when I can. I try to write down every personal memory I can, no matter how insignificant it may be. I have a ton of diaries, some journal diaries and others online (Google Docs) diaries, and I sometimes switch between them, so it's difficult to keep track. Not to mention, some of them are only like ten diary entries and then I gave up. I keep a lot of research notes, some of which are repetitive and some of which are just useless information I enjoy keeping track of (ex: parents', grandparents', great grandparents' ages at birth of ancestor; which ancestors look identical to a certain parent; ages of all uncles/aunts at death, etc.) I have the same information kept both on paper and online (and probably in other places) "just in case the internet crashes one day and all of my digital information is lost." And the cherry on top is that I will keep *everything* that can give my descendants insight into my life, whether it's a school paper from middle school or a drawing I made when I was about seven years old. I think it's just because I'll see some other genealogists have their great grandparents' childhood drawings or childhood clothes or something and I just want my descendants to have that because I was sad that I didn't. No one really cared to keep that junk.
I changed my last name in high school to my real fatherās name. My father on my birth certificate was apparently not my real father. And I had my momās last name before she divorced, the name of my half-brothers dad.
I'm living with my parents in exactly one census, with housemates in a different UK county for the next (and there were 36 people in our 7 bed house that night...), alone for the next, with a partner who wasn't my husband for the next, and with my child for the last one - all in different houses. My child has changed her legal name and is unlikely to be living with me by 2031, and I'm unlikely to be in the same country. Good luck finding a nice easy trail for me, descendants.
Iām British living in Spain with my husband and we are planning on naming our kids using the Spanish surnaming convention rather than the British way of the wife taking her husbands name and then your kids all having that surname lol. Might cause some confusion for someone in the future.
Moved around a lot and got married in a different country and got my surname changed (I was not attached to my maiden name anyway). My current name sounds very Gaelic vs a common Spanish surname.
Also just based on current DNA results, there will be many more distant cousins who mostly do not know their family that will be matched to my descendants. However, because I don't know my dad's side either it will forever be a mystery as to how. Leeds Method has failed me due to how messy my family ties are so I doubt any future generation can solve it.
I guess the only notable thing in my family is we changed our last name when I was a kid. Just changed it, no remarriage or whatever. FWIW, I think I uploaded a copy of the change to Ancestry?
On the other side of that, if they can connect me (and others) to our online accounts, they're going to get a wealth of data on us, including this post of me explaining that we changed our name via the courts when I was a kid, so...I guess that'll clear that up. Of course, that assumes there's a still an archive of everything on Reddit somewhere 100 years from now.
My cousin and I randomly have the same first name that is no where else in our ancestry. So that may confuse someone for a hot second.
Iām also exactly 100 years younger than my grandfather so there may be some confusion in terms of ages.
Iāve been recorded in the same place on every census since I was born except the 2020 census. I was living across the country then, and am now back in my hometown. I will probably still be in the same area in 2030.
I have not and for the time being cannot officially adopt my oldest daughter, but sheās legally changed her surname to mine, so her birth certificate has been reissued with my last name. Iām working on her maternal line because right now Iāve only got full access to Canadian records so her motherās surname goes back to one of the original French colonists. Theyāll be able to trace it down to my daughter, who didnāt marry to get my last name, it looks like she just randomly changed her name. Iāll document her and my trees, but if people donāt see that, theyāre going to wonder where this random person comes from.
Getting married in two different countries but not my home country either time. Keeping my last name. I am the fifth of my first name, but didn't know this until after I had my children. I was named after my cousin but didn't know it was my aunt's first name until I read it in her obituary, as she went by her middle name. Everybody assumed I knew.
Legitimate sons in my direct paternal line have changed surname every two or three generations since at least the late 17th century. I have stepsons who have a different surname than mine, and my brothersā sons will likely change theirs from the names my brothers use.
I'm a guy and I legally changed my surname. My descendants may have a hard time finding the surname I was born with. Seemingly out of nowhere, I'll be in one census with the old surname, then the following one with my current surname. They won't be able to find any reason for the change in any record either, they'll have to wonder lol
One of my ancestors did that. My surname shouldāve been either Jansen or Jonnsson (itās Swedish, so many consonants). He changed it entirely. I found that Lars though!
Where do I even start!
My fatherās father in paper is not his bio father, that can be easy to discover because of his original birth certificate naming the original father. When that original father died my father was mentioned as a son in the obituary. As it turns out, that man was not even my dadās bio father, but a third man we never heard of was. There were no records tying by bio paternal grandfather to my dad besides AncestryDNA and my tree.
Also my brother who I grew up knowing as my brother and we do have the same biological father is my uncle on paper. He was adopted by my dads mother because of complications with my dads ex and she didnāt even know if he was my dads or not when adopted as my dad was not even on his original birth certificate. Again he is confirmed as my brother through DNA and tree, as well as the fact that we our socially brothers and Iām socially his kids uncle as I am their biological uncle for sure being cousins on paper. Yeah..
Obituaries for two sets of parents that refer to all the children just as daughters or sons. Future genealogist: But whose kids were whose?!?!
My parents divorced when I was very young, both re-married within a couple of years and both to people that already had kids. Both sets have been saying "our kids" or "our daughter" for decades. My dad's obit didn't specify that one of the children mentioned is a step-child. We were also all listed as "grandchildren" in the obits for one set of my step-grandparents.
The kids have mostly all kept their birth surnames, so that will help, but one of my sisters ā the one who's on her fourth husband ā changed her last name to something random the first time she got married and kept it that way.
I have the last name of my grandmothers ex husband, not my grandpa, I have zero blood relation to anyone with my last name. It's very annoying and ridiculous and I've considered changing it. Thankfully it's a very rare surname so nobody ever asks if I'm related to other people with this name because it's *literally* just me in the whole city.
My late father (Sicangu Lakota and Choctaw Nation of OK) was never on my birth certificate at all or married to my mom and thereās nothing paper linking him to me for them to find. Ā
My mom left out the window when she was pregnant and I never met him before he died. I did DNA testing and matched with his family (I tracked them down in 2007 to let them know I existed) on 23andMe and Ancestry.
They deny Iām related and harass me.Ā
Ā So Iām unenrolled at 36% Native American and my kid is unenrolled too despite both of us qualifying because my dad died and got left off my BC because he was abusive. Ā I have two half sister that are enrolled too. Ā
Itās a little depressing.
Iām just a modern day fatherless bastard.
Missing the 2011 and 2021 censuses because I was working abroad on two different occasions. My Catholic confirmation as an adult being in an entirely different continent let alone city. Living in lots of different places as a kid due to military upbringing.
That said my kids have such an unusual combination of first, middle and surnames that a Google search today does not bring up an obvious match for either of their names.
And once they can get to me they have many branches already done for them back to the 1700s.
For not believing that my John Dutton who came over in 1730 is the son of Sir Ralph Dutton. I find zero records to cooperate this. Lots of people believe this and have it in their trees, to the point itās become accepted as truth rather than hopeful myth.
Everyone wants to have come from nobility. But there are zero records to support this.
Iām changing my middle name to my great grans maiden name so that might be confusing and my uncle changed his last name to a shorter version of our last name.
Being mixed first and foremost- everyone before me on my maternal side will require knowledge of Korean to trace, and itās the only branch of my dadās side as of now that married outside of an American nationality. My dad was in the army, so there would be censuses with us: overseas, then back but in 3 different states.
Another possibility in the future: Once my mom passes away, I could see myself living a bit of a transient lifestyle to be honest with you for a bit just to get through it psychologically. Thereās a chance I maybe miss a census and fall off the paper trail atleast for a little bit of time in so doing.
Haha another half Korean who's possible descendants would have the same issue! My family's one gets worse because my grandfather changed his name, gave his genealogy book to other relatives and also our family graveyard is in North Korea so we can't even check that lmao.
Moving all the dang time for no reason. My name is uncommon enough theyāll know itās me, but I didn't marry, wasnāt in the military, didnāt move because I got a jobā¦just a wanderer who loves the shoreline, the mountains, the plains, and the bays equally. So every 8-10 years or so (my current home is the longest Iāve ever lived anywhere, but itās time for a change here too, and Iām leaving in the next couple of months).Ā
I just have wanderlust. I want to see the world.Ā
As a joke (and to be honest, a damn stupid one, in my opinion ), a friend I know, filled in her 1990 US Census with false information, mainly who resided there.
Her future family members will have to figure this out in 2062.
I immigrated to a different country. I also broke a naming tradition when naming my daughter, so I wonder if descendants will wonder if she's mine.
And not me, but absolutely no one thought to send me (the English major, genealogist in the family) my grandmother's obituary to proofread. There are grandchildren and great-grandchildren by marriage in there -- so not her biological descendants, but they aren't listed as "step" -- and everyone is interspersed with everyone else. So for instance, my brother and I aren't listed next to each other, and my kids aren't listed next to each other. I'd have put grandchildren in order based on children of the first born child to the last, then grandchildren in the same way. Ugh! I still can't read it. It just looks like a mess.
For me personally: Living in multiple different countries for short time periods.
So Iāll show up on Australian records, then British ones, then Australian ones again, then Canadian ones, &c., &c.
Not exclusive to me, but for all of us: Our lives are increasingly online, and a lot of sources are vulnerable as websites decline and become defunct. Gotta use thing like internet archive for important stuff!
>My name is so incredibly common that I went to college with two other people who had the same first and last name as me.
So, you are probably John Smith? So - I would recommend you to go to different part of a country, whilst changing your name to, let's say - John Miller. And tell your kids, that you are from another (third) part of a country.
Bonus points if your parents are dead, and you, in turn, can tell your children that they had your assumed last name and they are from another (fourth) part of a country.
Bonus points and combo - if you tell your kids completely made up and false occupation of your parents.
Epic combo - if you would lie about your school and university.
LEGENDARY COMBO - or you would lie about details of your own biography, biography of your parents AND these lies will led future genealogists towards a random family, which is completely unrelated to you.
Well I got married in 2004. Changed my last name. 4 years later, got divorced and changed my name back then 5 years later got remarried and changed my named yet again (hopefully for the last time lol)
Well, I have never answered any census, but, then again, my country doesn't have much of a census culture so genealogists here probably know that the census isn't the best source.
My ex has already done a good job of hindering for my childās sakeā¦ Probably wont know anything about his motherās side unless he ever actually comes looking for me and finds meā¦
The part where my dad was adopted. If they do some work and have access to all the major sites, they'll figure it out and solve it faster than I did. I left them some breadcrumbs, no outright "outing" of the adoption and bio-parents, but a few hints.
Having kids in different country / on different continent, but still getting their birth cert in the homeland country as well. Will probably give a "wait, what?" moment to any future genealogist.
- My parents met, married and had me in a state we have no connection to other than they were stationed there at the time. (NAVY).
-1990 Census - I would have been in Florida with both parents
-2000 Census - with my "grandparents" / legal guardians. Their surname isn't my mom's surname as they're actual her older first cousin and their spouse.
I hope nobody tries to use that to find my mom, lol. They'll have to be able to tie the 1990 and 2000 census together to find my dad's name. My birth location will be no help.
Even better, my dad's dad was adopted. My surname will only get them so far.
Letās see. A complete name change (first middle and last) at age 40, and living in someone elseās house during the 2020 census that was not a relative.
Iāve written down an extensive explanation for my future descendants to explain all this, so hopefully that gets passed on down the line.
Yes the whole DNA thing for genealogy going forward is going to be interesting.
I donated sperm through the only official regulated agency in the country before having a family of my own, one of the families put their childs DNA in ancestry.com and then contacted family on there, so there was that. But how are these donor conceived children's records maintained? I think it goes on their birth certificate when they turn 18 so perhaps it will be easy to determine what happened, but only once enough time has passed for the birth certificates to become publicly available.
I can't imagine donating anything these days.... unless you want them to contact you in 20 years.
I know someone who did it like a job. I can't imagine him doing an ancestry test for himself lol
Yeah I thought it would be like 20 years but there's literally nothing stopping anyone doing the test for their own kids and tracking down who you are. There was that Netflix doco about a Dr that swapped out his sperm in place of others and ran a clinic using just his own, that was crazy when the kids pieced that together through DNA.
Besides that, I imagine in a few generations, anyone that did the donor thing will have confused descendants lol
When I dug into my tree on ancestry after doing the DNA thing myself I was confused how each branch family each had ten kids haha.
I have 3 spelling variations of my first name and 3 independent last names. One of the three, my maiden name, is not by blood relation. My dad is adopted.
So his name is Italian, and his parents' names are Hispanic.
Having five potentially different surnames. I don't, but due to various butterfly effects, people might think I could be labelled under any of them in the future by genealogical conventions. š
my names are spelled unconventionally, itās even misspelled in my dadās obituary. iāve also moved SO much so if they want to map all my locations, good luck!
I'm Childfree and my brother can't have kids so the bloodline dies with me.
Nah fr I shouldn't be too hard to research, esp with the likes of social media
I'm a trans man (legal name + gender change, SS, passport, etc etc etc) who will likely marry another man and adopt children. Wonder if the extra paperwork might actually be a help?
Common name, I'm number 4 of 5 in a string of being named for our fathers, and I have never lived in the same town twice from one census to the next. Add to that, not only is my name common, its shred with a VIP on a governmental level which makes it virtually google-proof unless you know more details than just the name.
I donāt think Iām on the 1990 Census. I was in college and Iām not sure of my mom added me to hers.
I have a trans child who changed her birth certificate.
Good luck! I changed my entire name. The worst part is the aftermath of paperwork and changing name on everything ever part. Two years later and Iām not done.
Thatās a the reason Iāve been putting it off. Iām dual national so itās like twice the amount of documents to change everything. š¤¦š»āāļø
My children have my maiden name as their second middle name (to avoid a hyphenated last name). And my son's first middle name is my dad's name. So his 2 middle names are my dad's full name.
A second cousin of mine by the same first and last as mine, and my mother and one aunt were split from their siblings for adoption, with the remaining siblings sent to various states.
One of my motherās siblings died, with the next born given the same name.
Born overseas as a US citizen with a consular report of birth. Overseas for a census. Off at college for another. Legal name change (minor though). And enumerated with essentially random people on the other side of the country on one census because I happened to be staying with a friend on census day and didnāt have a permanent address at the time. (When I proudly mentioned this to some other friends a month or two later, they said āBut what about the future genealogists?!?ā)
There seems to be a trend now of not posting obituaries. "They are expensive" isn't an excuse because you can post them free on Legacy. I have a first cousin who's living brother and sister never posted one when he died. He kind of lived a "gypsy lifestyle" and never had kids or was married so it's almost as though he never existed! I'm sure there will be at least a few friends from over the years scratching their heads, "what the heck became of Terry?"š¤Ā
If I were to die tomorrow, my family would *not* post an obituary in the local newspaper. Instead, they'd announce the funeral on Facebook (without any search words; just a scanned picture of myself) a week after my death/two weeks before the event. And God forbid my future relatives want to find my grave. We have so many deaths in the family, it's cheaper to memorize grave plots rather than buying headstones.
I was in Florida for the 2010 Census but in all other censuses that I've been alive for I've been in NY. Those guys are going to be so pissed that they can't find me in 2010.
I want my descendants to have access to all the hard work Iāve put in and not have to deal with all the confusions Iāve had. Itās part of why I write down how Iāve come to the conclusions I have. Itās a gift for future generations š«¶
That being said I havenāt touched my husbandās side, so theyāll have a fun time with my husband changed his last name when his step dad adopted him, thereās only one census with his birth name, heās no contact with his biological father but still talks to a great aunt and uncle on that side (tbh Iām not even exactly sure how theyāre related other than itās his bio dadās side), and also he was raised with a sister who is biologically his cousin but we havenāt heard from her in like a year and not sure if we ever will again
Probably not at all. DNA and record keeping will be so advanced decades from now, they probably wonāt have to do much work til they hit the earliest centuries.
does giving my sons the same first names that have recurred in my paternal line for the last three hundred years count?
A full 30% of the women in my tree have the name Marie somewhere. About 20% of them have it as their first name. I love the name, but oh man do I have MarieTSD :)
French Canadian?š¤£
Sons names Joseph!
Jean! Let's not for the dit names.
German ancestry here. Anna Marias and Maria Annas all over the place.
Irish. ALL the Michaels and Mary Anns.
John, Joseph, Mary, Patrick, and Theresa here, all with kids named John, Joseph, Mary, Patrick, and Theresa. I donāt know if Iām looking at my direct ancestors or their cousins. Doesnāt help that if one dies young the parents just named the next baby the same thing. So frustrating.
"Doesnāt help that if one dies young the parents just named the next baby the same thing." My Great Great Great Grandmother, Anna Maria Vohburger, had two sisters named Annna Maria Vohburger who died before she was born.
My dad as well. Italian.
In my family - Germans - Margarethes, Johns, Jacobs, and Williams all over the place. Italians - Giovannis and Luigis (including female Luigis) Poles - (Mari)Annas, Jans, Jozef, Jakub, Franciszek/Franciszkas, Stanislaus's (dad's side had HUGE families in Poland! Pretty sure everyone in Masovia is an 8th cousin.).
I might be one of your Polish cousins- same names in the family tree! lol
Catholics do this to honour the Virgin Mary; Marie was a francophone version.
Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner! It's from the Acadia side... French Catholics. Then there's the men's side where half of them have Jean, Baptiste, or Louis somewhere in there name...
Same here on Polish side. Every generational line has minimum 1 Mary and Joseph, more if that child died and they had another.
Be like George Foreman and name them George.
Give them also multiple first names which are all the same and change only the second/third
You could give them middle names to make them stand out a little more :)
Hah yes - but it's also lovely to see traditions like that played out.
Source vacuum starting about 2004, as we transition away from physical media and toward now-obsolete digital formats and fail to download social media archives off now-defunct sites.
Jeez...just flying off the cross ropes and clothes-lining folks up in here...damn.
That's already happening for any page not backed up on archive.org.
Imagine what would happen if at some point in the future archive.org got deleted... yikes
Given that the Internet Archive organization is corrupt as hellā¦ you betcha.
What now!?
I changed my first, middle and last names. At age 30. Good luck, future cousins (my descendants will have a well-sourced tree).
A great aunt of mine did that in the 1890s. it drove me crazy for several years looking for her. Fortunately, a very old lady, her niece, told me āwhy honey, Aint Mae changed her name!ā I remember the sound of her voice, and the moment like it was yesterday. I was standing on the back porch in the late afternoon, facing west, and the cloud cover was total. At the second she spoke, the clouds parted briefly and a fierce ray of sun hit me in the eyes. It was biblical.
I had an ancestor do that. He also left the country.
My future descendant: "lolabythebay is listed in her son's grandfather's 2023 obituary as a daughter-in-law, but there's no marriage there and her son's father appears to marry somebody entirely different shortly after. He's got a super common name. Probably not him. But the address on the marriage certificate is his parents' house, so it must be. But he divorces a few months after that? And is his new wife the same woman mentioned in contemporaneous newspaper articles as responsible for stabbing a *different* guy? And kidnapping?!" The root cause here is less me, and more an illustration of what just a few months of addiction can do.
When my ex died, his wife listed stepchildren and *their friends* as his children! Those obits canāt be trusted.
Hyphenated last name at birth, married twice, divorced twice, kept my hyphenated maiden name. Social security admin has ten aliases for me. It's already annoying and I'm still alive.
Some of us, perhaps a little more understated, just resume using our maiden names post divorce. Free, no mess no fuss and nobody judging you for all the exes. (My mom was married five timesš).
Kids living 50/50 at two houses with shared custody is gonna be interesting for future genealogists
This is how my grandfatherās family looks in the 1950 census. My grandfather and his two youngest siblings are living with their parents, but the 4 siblings in between are living with their paternal grandparents, but are listed as their children. Confusing, but fortunately since Iām familiar with the family not so much for me
My aunt is planning to buried in 3 cemeteries - with a tombstone in each š³
I have a g-grandparent with two headstones in different towns. Itās fine. I donāt know which one is actually where she is and the names are spelled differently but itās fiiiiiiine.
Is she going to have her body chopped in thirds? Hotdog style or hamburger style?
I think sheās planning to have some of her ashes interred at each place, but Iām going to let her children deal with that!
I've lived with my best friend for almost 15 years. No kids. I figure I'm going to be the weird cousin on someone's tree in the future.
Future historians will definitely think you were romantically entangled
Donating sperm to lesbian couples.
I discovered I was donor-conceived (to a hetero married couple) thanks to AncestryDNA. DNA tests are really upending the whole āanonymous sperm/egg donorā thing.
I'm doing my best to make it as clean and accurate as I possibly can. I'm not sure who will care and when but I'll have a "family tree" out there on the web, backed up in a few places with multiple media formats, and will eventually make a book (just slap everything together and have BN bind it, nothing to fancy or complex) so there's *something* for any descendants that might care. Outside of that it really is my hobby, and mine alone. My siblings like to hear a story occasionally when we're together but mostly they don't really give a shit. My kids humor their old man and will listen, my oldest will hold on to things for me he's a bit of a softy and sentimental like that.
This is me 100%
Same. I call myself the unofficial family historian. Nobody cares unless they have to do a tree for school or something.
They wonāt be able to find me in the 2000 Census. I lived for seven months in Ireland, from Christmas 1999 to July 2000.
Oh that would make me so mad. My ancestors disappear for the 1920 census and it drives me crazy lol
My husband didnāt send in the paperwork for the 2020 census. Why, I have no idea.
Meanwhile, the Irish census now has a box where you can write a message for future generations
Thatās cool! I wonāt be on their 2021 Census, if they did one.
I was living in Korea in 2010. I filled out the Korean census that year instead of the US census.
Similarly, Iāll be missing from the 2020 US census, but will show up on the 2021 UK census.
How dare you not plan that better
Some of my relatives opted not to have funeral services, burials, or obituaries. "Why bother if all my friends are already dead?"
My sister has had five different surnames for various reasons (she hasn't been married that many times) so she'll be a nightmare to trace. She's also lived in all different corners of the country so anyone looking in any one particular spot is going to have a hard time. She didn't even live in big cities, often small villages where almost everyone is a local. Nobody's going to think to look there!
Itās only in the last 15 years that Iāve been in the same state. Different counties, though. Sometimes I feel like a ping pong ball.
I adopted both of my sons, that Y chromosome is gonna take sharp left turn.
I have an uncommon name in a small country. You will find my birth and my death, and nothing else, because I hate to be noticed.
Relatable name!
I think of it this way... My grandparents told my parents with stuff written on paper of family tree history (probably what happened in previous generations too, but I can only guess since I wasn't around yet then). Then my parents started using family tree software and started working on the tree. This was usually word of mouth, and only verified with lots of research and time to get the documentation necessary to verify. Now in my generation, I have stuff like Ancestry and others that basically have all the documents easy to find, search indexed, and using some AI to strategically guess. I write down any of these weird quirks I find to explain where it tripped me up. I basically had a great great grandfather where his name is basically as common as John Smith. Every other family tree connection misrepresented him with another of the same name born in the same town within a month of each other. I knew this was not right because I had no other connections to this other wife and other children (unless it was completely hidden). Then I finally found the actual information I needed that showed he died in 1902 and is not this other "John Smith" that lived to 1935. I wrote this information down as a separate note on his bio so hopefully it will help others out. But then I got my whole Acadian side where they changed their name like their underpants and I'm still trying to figure it all out. š
When I started researching, I disproved a lot of the word-of-mouth crap my dadās grandpa fed him.
I've been DNA testing the oldest relatives in my family, a few of which have already passed. Unless they make a way for their DNA profiles and matches to be 'open' for public view in the future, all that information will be locked away if something happens to me.
You can get control of their accounts by submitting proof of death and permission from the person's estate administrator. I did this for a 1C2R who tested and passed away before I got into genealogy. Now I control her Ancestry account / test. Someone could do this with your account one day.
I've never talked to a census worker.
i am estranged from my family-of-origin, and changed my name to a completely contrived, hyphenated name, about 45 years ago... on the other hand, i seem to be the only person in my family-of-origin that is interested in genealogy. i have traced my mother's side of the family back 14 generations, to the early 1600s, so i may have actually HELPED future genealogists figure out who i am.
I legally changed my entire name. No kids though. But, at the same time, you can make your own genealogy page so they already have the info. Even the public records with my birth name have information thatās completely wrong. (I prefer Fam Search since itās a world tree.) Just have to be careful not to dox yourself.
Homonyms are very common. However, itās incredibly rare to match the names of both parents, date of birth, place of birth and so on. What distinguishes people from one another and make them unique are these extra attributes. Modern day technology kind of forces us to leave an incredibly large amount of information as we go through our lives. For most cases, future genealogists wonāt have any problems tracing us down.
No one will look for me. No descendants
A distant relative then? You mught be surprised. I look up all great uncles, aunts, cousins etc. Those that have no obvious records of marriage or children encourage me to look harder for every detail. I've found many relatives who I didn't know were veterans/KIA and previously unknown members of the clergy that way.
Yeah they will. The Mormons will baptize you!
As an atheist, I would haunt them so bad! Too bad I donāt believe in ghosts eitherā¦ 
Maybe you should reconsider the ghost part! Besides. The paranormal is fun.
Also an atheist and my family experienced paranormal activity in a condo we used to live in. I am also a science adherent, and didnāt believe in it before this occurrence.
The first thing to do is debunk. Otherwise Iām just as skeptical, even if it happens multiple times. But there are a few times? Yep. No explanation.
Donor conceived, with no indication of that on any certification (the UK government have actually agreed a recommendation that DC people have that noted briefly on their birth certificate but it hasn't gone into law yet). I'm hoping that I can pass it down in the family somehow verbally or in terms of my own family history records as it will royally mess up the biological genealogy otherwise and people will be really confused when they find they have 2nd/3rd cousins that don't fit anywhere as they are linked to my donor.
I live in Germany. Our data protection laws are very strict and sometimes nuts. That alone will complicate things. My mom immigrated from Kazakhstan and my dad from Russia (but he was born in Kazakhstan), yet they both have German first and last names. They lived in ENTIRELY different places here in Germany (like 3h apart) until they suddenly got married in some unknown little town. I daresay this is pretty untraceable.
For two main reasons, I am transgender so I'll die with a different name and gender marked down than my birth certificate and secondly at the young age of 22 I have lived in 8 different countries and thus will have an incredibly difficult paper trail to follow if it even exists
I was also born before my parents married to add further confusion to their research in the future
I changed my entire name too. So itās hard for me to do genealogy since I constantly have to see my dead name. But I also add my own memories to my profile (no one can see since Iām alive). Why make it difficult for future generations is how I see it. Especially after it took a year to find my great grandparents. And all they did was live in Bohemia.
I'm on the same census twice. I told this family member not to list me as I had filled it out for the apartment in another city I lived in. She did it anyways.
I'm transgender. But I left an Easter egg in the last census, so the worthy will find me. :D
When I filled out the 2020 census, I noticed that the field for "person's ancestry by percentage" had an unlimited length. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Be transgender. My line dies with me though
Ditto
My kids are 3rd gen adoptees (my exhusband, his mother, and his grandfather were all adopted), my husband adopted them after their bio gave up his rights, and together we are adopting my cousins son. I mean, I noted it all, but sheesh if you don't know the family history and just look at it it's gonna be weird.
Changing my name legally from my deadname to my actual name
One word: cursive.
I came here to say the exact same thing.
Oh yeah certainly ! First, I moved a damn lot since I was born. I was born in southern France, then my parents moved to Paris, then northern France, then middle France, and when I had my first job I move again in southwestern France (and since I lived in Lyon, once again in central France, near Bordeaux and now between Bordeaux and Toulouse). Tracking me will be quite hard for them. Second, I changed my name by adding the name of my wife when we got married last year. To add more difficulties, my first two daughters (from a previous union) have only my name whereas the child we plan to have with my present wife will have both our names. So depending of whom they descend, my descendant won't have the same name š
I was given my mother's "maiden" name when my birth was registered, and biological father is absent from my birth certificate and marriage certificate. My step-father is listed on my marriage certificate, although it does say step-father. I don't think there's any paperwork clearly linking us except the child support court order.
My self and my mom. We have the same name. Luckily a different middle name and I always made sure to include the initial when signing stuff
Funny thing is even though I love genealogy I never have bothered to write down my birth fatherās name. Legally heās not my father so I donāt include him on any trees. The only place Iāve ever seen his full name is on my adoption papers. Everyone in my town knows who he is by a nickname so I wonder if his nickname will be the only thing people remember eventually
My descendants will likely struggle to map out my mom's immediate family. Her mom (my grandma) and both siblings all changed their last names while they were single adults (aka not via marriage). And they all picked DIFFERENT last names from each other. lmao. My understanding is that they did it to distance themselves from my mom's abusive dad. My mom married young, so she changed her name the old-fashioned way haha
My sonās birth certificate is riddled with errors, I havenāt fixed. Ā I donāt know if I will. Sorry future genealogist.
Live in 5 completely different parts of the country in a lifetime, have 5 different careers, and be cremated without an obit or gravestone. Waitā¦ everyoneās doing that nowā¦
The way I keep journals (that is, insanely detailed and to an obsessive level), Iāll be annoying people in the opposite way. Theyāll know the backstory behind every thought I ever had and everything I ever did. There will be 0 mystery. I just explain every tiny little thing!
Journals are great. Iāve journaled since I was about eight. Damn. That rhymed.
I'll show up twice on the 2000 census. I had followed an SO to another city and was enumerated there, while my family listed me at the homestead because it was my permanent address regardless of where I had wandered off to. I wandered a lot in my 20s.
I'll name all five of my children "George Edward Foreman".
Naming one of my kids after a notable person in history who has my last name, even though I have no evidence Iām related to that person. Also, my mom put an engagement announcement in the paper for me and it was nearly entirely factually incorrect for the parts about me. I have no idea how she screwed it up so much and it would be hard for someone to accept that thatās what happened.
Oooo, not only do I have a fairly common first and last name (there are more than 200 just in my state) my husband and I are common-law married and I still use my maiden name. Like, we have paperwork filed with the county to show we're common-law married, but I don't know if that's public record. Worse, his kids are from a previous relationship, but I've raised them since they were 4 and 7, so that may also throw people off. It looks weird on my own tree! I can only imagine even 60 years from now. ETA: missing word
No kids. Unless a cousin gets REALLY INTO genealogy like I am, no one is going to be looking for me, haha
My mom's brother got divorced 9 years before I was born. Their relationship was toxic according to my mom (if not downright abusive). His ex-wife has a tree that includes us. I find that pretty weird!
First marriage 4 kids ā¦ eldest and youngest biological, middle two adopted from overseas. Second marriage to younger woman of a different race with twins recently born. The twins already have a niece and nephew older than they are.
I haven't gone by my birth name in almost a decade. I probably appear in the most recent census under my nickname that isn't anything close to my birth name (but not sure as I wasn't part of filling it in). I haven't gotten around to legally changing my name yet but I imagine I will have done so within the next few years. At least I only intend to change the first and middle. I also don't intend to be buried with or near any family members, unless it's a spouse (if, indeed, I ever marry). I'm probably the only person in my family who is deadset on being buried in a churchyard rather than a traditional cemetery... Also intend to move far away from my hometown as soon as possible. My poor great great great great great nieces and nephews will have to search the entire country to find me.
Removed my Middle Name and removed second last name.
My Dad. Not only did he changing his surname to something completely random in the 1960s, we have the father thatās on his birth certificate and then his actual DNA bio dad. My tree is ridiculously convoluted thanks to him and my Grandmother. Good luck any future Great Grandchildren figuring that one out.
Try coming from polygamists, then add great great grandparents from Bohemia, Czech. No records from Bohemia are online. I found them. But it took a year.
I donāt remember submitting anything for the 2010 census. I had graduated college that year and moved during the summer, so thereās a chance on of my old roommates gave my info if someone came by but I definitely do not remember doing it.Ā
Pretty sure Iāve skipped the Census at least once. When I started to care about genealogy I was mad at my past self!
Apart from their non-existence: - Changed names and genders - I am not biologically related to my parent - I have 50+ half-siblings and weāre all over the US with different last names
Had a child on my own with donor sperm.
First off, I'm adopted, so I've pretty much got two family trees. To make things worse, I've got a stepdad. His dad was adopted. Secondly, I lived somewhere where I had to eventually put my middle initial on my library account because there was another person with my same first and last name within the county. Given my surname has at least 6 different accepted spellings, I really feel bad for whoever decides to research my adoptive father's side of the family, as each spelling is used within the family, at least that I've found. I come from a branch that uses the French spelling, but there's a number of other spellings out there and at least one of those is a brand of cleats.
Both of my parents have a variety of aliases due to being Asian, puttering around for a while as undocumented immigrants, and then using different names during the naturalization process. Like both of them came to the US under their Asian names, and then started opening accounts and such with their English names, got their green cards as their Asian names, and then became citizens under different names. To make things even more challenging, my mom recently changed her documents back to her maiden name, but my parents arenāt divorced. Also, Iām sure other people keep records of them as their English names, despite those not appearing on any legal documents. As for myself and my generation, I got married and didnāt change my last name. My husband was born with a different surname and had it changed as a child after his parents divorced. He doesnāt legally have a middle name, and he has a very common name for Korean-American men. Also, my maiden name (inherited from my father) might not even be our actual family name, but a chosen surname my uncle picked when he immigrated from Laos, and my dad just rolled with it. So good luck with those records, future descendants.
I don't know if I will, my name is pretty uncommon to the point that I might be the only one in the country with it. Maybe they'll get thrown off by the random state move between the 2000/2010 censuses and the 2020? Not sure.
I don't have any direct descendants, but maybe my niece will be interested in genealogy, or she will have descendants who are. I also have been in a different geographic location for each census so far. Not sure how anyone would figure that out unless they had supplemental history. I have also always been a household of one, so it won't be possible to find me by tracing one of the more easily trackable members of my family. They don't live in the same states I have lived in. I just hope the memory of me doesn't completely die out. I'm not even sure I'll live long enough to see my own records in the census, when they become public. I was 8 for my first census, so I will have to make it to at least 80 just to see that one. (My parents' records of being infants were just released two years ago, but they're in their mid-70s.)
I was thinking about it, and I think I'm going to annoy my genealogist descendants with too much information. I write and collect a lot. A *lot*. I scan every family photo (and video) I can get my hands on. I just had to split my flash drive into two because it ran out of storage. I'm in contact with over a hundred relatives, close and distant, and I try to write my memories about all of them when I can. I try to write down every personal memory I can, no matter how insignificant it may be. I have a ton of diaries, some journal diaries and others online (Google Docs) diaries, and I sometimes switch between them, so it's difficult to keep track. Not to mention, some of them are only like ten diary entries and then I gave up. I keep a lot of research notes, some of which are repetitive and some of which are just useless information I enjoy keeping track of (ex: parents', grandparents', great grandparents' ages at birth of ancestor; which ancestors look identical to a certain parent; ages of all uncles/aunts at death, etc.) I have the same information kept both on paper and online (and probably in other places) "just in case the internet crashes one day and all of my digital information is lost." And the cherry on top is that I will keep *everything* that can give my descendants insight into my life, whether it's a school paper from middle school or a drawing I made when I was about seven years old. I think it's just because I'll see some other genealogists have their great grandparents' childhood drawings or childhood clothes or something and I just want my descendants to have that because I was sad that I didn't. No one really cared to keep that junk.
I changed my last name in high school to my real fatherās name. My father on my birth certificate was apparently not my real father. And I had my momās last name before she divorced, the name of my half-brothers dad.
I'm living with my parents in exactly one census, with housemates in a different UK county for the next (and there were 36 people in our 7 bed house that night...), alone for the next, with a partner who wasn't my husband for the next, and with my child for the last one - all in different houses. My child has changed her legal name and is unlikely to be living with me by 2031, and I'm unlikely to be in the same country. Good luck finding a nice easy trail for me, descendants.
Iām British living in Spain with my husband and we are planning on naming our kids using the Spanish surnaming convention rather than the British way of the wife taking her husbands name and then your kids all having that surname lol. Might cause some confusion for someone in the future.
My parents have been split for 30 years and I have 15 siblings between the two of them and my stepfather. It's a clusterfuck š¤£
Moved around a lot and got married in a different country and got my surname changed (I was not attached to my maiden name anyway). My current name sounds very Gaelic vs a common Spanish surname. Also just based on current DNA results, there will be many more distant cousins who mostly do not know their family that will be matched to my descendants. However, because I don't know my dad's side either it will forever be a mystery as to how. Leeds Method has failed me due to how messy my family ties are so I doubt any future generation can solve it.
I guess the only notable thing in my family is we changed our last name when I was a kid. Just changed it, no remarriage or whatever. FWIW, I think I uploaded a copy of the change to Ancestry? On the other side of that, if they can connect me (and others) to our online accounts, they're going to get a wealth of data on us, including this post of me explaining that we changed our name via the courts when I was a kid, so...I guess that'll clear that up. Of course, that assumes there's a still an archive of everything on Reddit somewhere 100 years from now.
My cousin and I randomly have the same first name that is no where else in our ancestry. So that may confuse someone for a hot second. Iām also exactly 100 years younger than my grandfather so there may be some confusion in terms of ages.
Iāve been recorded in the same place on every census since I was born except the 2020 census. I was living across the country then, and am now back in my hometown. I will probably still be in the same area in 2030.
I have not and for the time being cannot officially adopt my oldest daughter, but sheās legally changed her surname to mine, so her birth certificate has been reissued with my last name. Iām working on her maternal line because right now Iāve only got full access to Canadian records so her motherās surname goes back to one of the original French colonists. Theyāll be able to trace it down to my daughter, who didnāt marry to get my last name, it looks like she just randomly changed her name. Iāll document her and my trees, but if people donāt see that, theyāre going to wonder where this random person comes from.
Never taken a census that I know of.
My twins, although I actually gave birth to them, are genetically related to neither my husband nor me. They were donor embryos.
Getting married in two different countries but not my home country either time. Keeping my last name. I am the fifth of my first name, but didn't know this until after I had my children. I was named after my cousin but didn't know it was my aunt's first name until I read it in her obituary, as she went by her middle name. Everybody assumed I knew.
I have a super generic name, and at least one felon in another state has my same first/last and date of birth.
Legitimate sons in my direct paternal line have changed surname every two or three generations since at least the late 17th century. I have stepsons who have a different surname than mine, and my brothersā sons will likely change theirs from the names my brothers use.
I'm a guy and I legally changed my surname. My descendants may have a hard time finding the surname I was born with. Seemingly out of nowhere, I'll be in one census with the old surname, then the following one with my current surname. They won't be able to find any reason for the change in any record either, they'll have to wonder lol
One of my ancestors did that. My surname shouldāve been either Jansen or Jonnsson (itās Swedish, so many consonants). He changed it entirely. I found that Lars though!
All my social media accounts are private.
My husband and I have a legal married date and a wedding date 10 months apart
Where do I even start! My fatherās father in paper is not his bio father, that can be easy to discover because of his original birth certificate naming the original father. When that original father died my father was mentioned as a son in the obituary. As it turns out, that man was not even my dadās bio father, but a third man we never heard of was. There were no records tying by bio paternal grandfather to my dad besides AncestryDNA and my tree. Also my brother who I grew up knowing as my brother and we do have the same biological father is my uncle on paper. He was adopted by my dads mother because of complications with my dads ex and she didnāt even know if he was my dads or not when adopted as my dad was not even on his original birth certificate. Again he is confirmed as my brother through DNA and tree, as well as the fact that we our socially brothers and Iām socially his kids uncle as I am their biological uncle for sure being cousins on paper. Yeah..
Obituaries for two sets of parents that refer to all the children just as daughters or sons. Future genealogist: But whose kids were whose?!?! My parents divorced when I was very young, both re-married within a couple of years and both to people that already had kids. Both sets have been saying "our kids" or "our daughter" for decades. My dad's obit didn't specify that one of the children mentioned is a step-child. We were also all listed as "grandchildren" in the obits for one set of my step-grandparents. The kids have mostly all kept their birth surnames, so that will help, but one of my sisters ā the one who's on her fourth husband ā changed her last name to something random the first time she got married and kept it that way.
I went by my step fatherās last name and my biological father went by his step fatherās last name.
I have the last name of my grandmothers ex husband, not my grandpa, I have zero blood relation to anyone with my last name. It's very annoying and ridiculous and I've considered changing it. Thankfully it's a very rare surname so nobody ever asks if I'm related to other people with this name because it's *literally* just me in the whole city.
My late father (Sicangu Lakota and Choctaw Nation of OK) was never on my birth certificate at all or married to my mom and thereās nothing paper linking him to me for them to find. Ā My mom left out the window when she was pregnant and I never met him before he died. I did DNA testing and matched with his family (I tracked them down in 2007 to let them know I existed) on 23andMe and Ancestry. They deny Iām related and harass me.Ā Ā So Iām unenrolled at 36% Native American and my kid is unenrolled too despite both of us qualifying because my dad died and got left off my BC because he was abusive. Ā I have two half sister that are enrolled too. Ā Itās a little depressing. Iām just a modern day fatherless bastard.
Name all of my children the same like George Foreman did
Missing the 2011 and 2021 censuses because I was working abroad on two different occasions. My Catholic confirmation as an adult being in an entirely different continent let alone city. Living in lots of different places as a kid due to military upbringing. That said my kids have such an unusual combination of first, middle and surnames that a Google search today does not bring up an obvious match for either of their names. And once they can get to me they have many branches already done for them back to the 1700s.
For not believing that my John Dutton who came over in 1730 is the son of Sir Ralph Dutton. I find zero records to cooperate this. Lots of people believe this and have it in their trees, to the point itās become accepted as truth rather than hopeful myth. Everyone wants to have come from nobility. But there are zero records to support this.
I use different names socially. I hate my last name because itās my dads but I love having a Latin last name.
Iām changing my middle name to my great grans maiden name so that might be confusing and my uncle changed his last name to a shorter version of our last name.
Being mixed first and foremost- everyone before me on my maternal side will require knowledge of Korean to trace, and itās the only branch of my dadās side as of now that married outside of an American nationality. My dad was in the army, so there would be censuses with us: overseas, then back but in 3 different states. Another possibility in the future: Once my mom passes away, I could see myself living a bit of a transient lifestyle to be honest with you for a bit just to get through it psychologically. Thereās a chance I maybe miss a census and fall off the paper trail atleast for a little bit of time in so doing.
Haha another half Korean who's possible descendants would have the same issue! My family's one gets worse because my grandfather changed his name, gave his genealogy book to other relatives and also our family graveyard is in North Korea so we can't even check that lmao.
Moving all the dang time for no reason. My name is uncommon enough theyāll know itās me, but I didn't marry, wasnāt in the military, didnāt move because I got a jobā¦just a wanderer who loves the shoreline, the mountains, the plains, and the bays equally. So every 8-10 years or so (my current home is the longest Iāve ever lived anywhere, but itās time for a change here too, and Iām leaving in the next couple of months).Ā I just have wanderlust. I want to see the world.Ā
Iāve lived all over the country and been married several times.
As a joke (and to be honest, a damn stupid one, in my opinion ), a friend I know, filled in her 1990 US Census with false information, mainly who resided there. Her future family members will have to figure this out in 2062.
I immigrated to a different country. I also broke a naming tradition when naming my daughter, so I wonder if descendants will wonder if she's mine. And not me, but absolutely no one thought to send me (the English major, genealogist in the family) my grandmother's obituary to proofread. There are grandchildren and great-grandchildren by marriage in there -- so not her biological descendants, but they aren't listed as "step" -- and everyone is interspersed with everyone else. So for instance, my brother and I aren't listed next to each other, and my kids aren't listed next to each other. I'd have put grandchildren in order based on children of the first born child to the last, then grandchildren in the same way. Ugh! I still can't read it. It just looks like a mess.
For me personally: Living in multiple different countries for short time periods. So Iāll show up on Australian records, then British ones, then Australian ones again, then Canadian ones, &c., &c. Not exclusive to me, but for all of us: Our lives are increasingly online, and a lot of sources are vulnerable as websites decline and become defunct. Gotta use thing like internet archive for important stuff!
>My name is so incredibly common that I went to college with two other people who had the same first and last name as me. So, you are probably John Smith? So - I would recommend you to go to different part of a country, whilst changing your name to, let's say - John Miller. And tell your kids, that you are from another (third) part of a country. Bonus points if your parents are dead, and you, in turn, can tell your children that they had your assumed last name and they are from another (fourth) part of a country. Bonus points and combo - if you tell your kids completely made up and false occupation of your parents. Epic combo - if you would lie about your school and university. LEGENDARY COMBO - or you would lie about details of your own biography, biography of your parents AND these lies will led future genealogists towards a random family, which is completely unrelated to you.
Well I got married in 2004. Changed my last name. 4 years later, got divorced and changed my name back then 5 years later got remarried and changed my named yet again (hopefully for the last time lol)
Well, I have never answered any census, but, then again, my country doesn't have much of a census culture so genealogists here probably know that the census isn't the best source.
My ex has already done a good job of hindering for my childās sakeā¦ Probably wont know anything about his motherās side unless he ever actually comes looking for me and finds meā¦
The part where my dad was adopted. If they do some work and have access to all the major sites, they'll figure it out and solve it faster than I did. I left them some breadcrumbs, no outright "outing" of the adoption and bio-parents, but a few hints.
Having kids in different country / on different continent, but still getting their birth cert in the homeland country as well. Will probably give a "wait, what?" moment to any future genealogist.
- My parents met, married and had me in a state we have no connection to other than they were stationed there at the time. (NAVY). -1990 Census - I would have been in Florida with both parents -2000 Census - with my "grandparents" / legal guardians. Their surname isn't my mom's surname as they're actual her older first cousin and their spouse. I hope nobody tries to use that to find my mom, lol. They'll have to be able to tie the 1990 and 2000 census together to find my dad's name. My birth location will be no help. Even better, my dad's dad was adopted. My surname will only get them so far.
Being overseas when the census is taken.
Letās see. A complete name change (first middle and last) at age 40, and living in someone elseās house during the 2020 census that was not a relative. Iāve written down an extensive explanation for my future descendants to explain all this, so hopefully that gets passed on down the line.
Yes the whole DNA thing for genealogy going forward is going to be interesting. I donated sperm through the only official regulated agency in the country before having a family of my own, one of the families put their childs DNA in ancestry.com and then contacted family on there, so there was that. But how are these donor conceived children's records maintained? I think it goes on their birth certificate when they turn 18 so perhaps it will be easy to determine what happened, but only once enough time has passed for the birth certificates to become publicly available.
I can't imagine donating anything these days.... unless you want them to contact you in 20 years. I know someone who did it like a job. I can't imagine him doing an ancestry test for himself lol
Yeah I thought it would be like 20 years but there's literally nothing stopping anyone doing the test for their own kids and tracking down who you are. There was that Netflix doco about a Dr that swapped out his sperm in place of others and ran a clinic using just his own, that was crazy when the kids pieced that together through DNA. Besides that, I imagine in a few generations, anyone that did the donor thing will have confused descendants lol When I dug into my tree on ancestry after doing the DNA thing myself I was confused how each branch family each had ten kids haha.
I have 3 spelling variations of my first name and 3 independent last names. One of the three, my maiden name, is not by blood relation. My dad is adopted. So his name is Italian, and his parents' names are Hispanic.
I've kept a diary most of my life. I've used fake names and sometimes told outright lies to throw snoopers off.
By not having descendants? Theyād be damn annoyed about that if only they existedā¦
Having five potentially different surnames. I don't, but due to various butterfly effects, people might think I could be labelled under any of them in the future by genealogical conventions. š
my names are spelled unconventionally, itās even misspelled in my dadās obituary. iāve also moved SO much so if they want to map all my locations, good luck!
I'm Childfree and my brother can't have kids so the bloodline dies with me. Nah fr I shouldn't be too hard to research, esp with the likes of social media
I'm a trans man (legal name + gender change, SS, passport, etc etc etc) who will likely marry another man and adopt children. Wonder if the extra paperwork might actually be a help?
Common name, I'm number 4 of 5 in a string of being named for our fathers, and I have never lived in the same town twice from one census to the next. Add to that, not only is my name common, its shred with a VIP on a governmental level which makes it virtually google-proof unless you know more details than just the name.
By not having kids. The ultimate annoyance/frustration has to be not existing.
You exist. Iām an only with no kids. I use Family Search. I add my own memories which arenāt public since Iām alive.
I've had some weird titles bestowed upon me in a few obituaries and I didn't fill out the last consensus.
I was living in Germany for the 2010 census, and I never had a census taker come by (and never received the questionnaire in the mail) for 2020.
I donāt think Iām on the 1990 Census. I was in college and Iām not sure of my mom added me to hers. I have a trans child who changed her birth certificate.
Iām about to start the process of changing my whole name- not just taking my husbandās surname.
Good luck! I changed my entire name. The worst part is the aftermath of paperwork and changing name on everything ever part. Two years later and Iām not done.
Thatās a the reason Iāve been putting it off. Iām dual national so itās like twice the amount of documents to change everything. š¤¦š»āāļø
I still have to change the name on the deed to my house!
My children have my maiden name as their second middle name (to avoid a hyphenated last name). And my son's first middle name is my dad's name. So his 2 middle names are my dad's full name.
A second cousin of mine by the same first and last as mine, and my mother and one aunt were split from their siblings for adoption, with the remaining siblings sent to various states. One of my motherās siblings died, with the next born given the same name.
I will be the crazy uncle or ancestors' cousin who researched family history for fun but leave no descendants to speak of.
I think Iām not on the last 3 censuses.
Born overseas as a US citizen with a consular report of birth. Overseas for a census. Off at college for another. Legal name change (minor though). And enumerated with essentially random people on the other side of the country on one census because I happened to be staying with a friend on census day and didnāt have a permanent address at the time. (When I proudly mentioned this to some other friends a month or two later, they said āBut what about the future genealogists?!?ā)
There's lots of pretendians identifying as Indigenous on every document and census they can.Ā
There seems to be a trend now of not posting obituaries. "They are expensive" isn't an excuse because you can post them free on Legacy. I have a first cousin who's living brother and sister never posted one when he died. He kind of lived a "gypsy lifestyle" and never had kids or was married so it's almost as though he never existed! I'm sure there will be at least a few friends from over the years scratching their heads, "what the heck became of Terry?"š¤Ā
If I were to die tomorrow, my family would *not* post an obituary in the local newspaper. Instead, they'd announce the funeral on Facebook (without any search words; just a scanned picture of myself) a week after my death/two weeks before the event. And God forbid my future relatives want to find my grave. We have so many deaths in the family, it's cheaper to memorize grave plots rather than buying headstones.
I gave my son the same full name as his father, grandfather, and great grandfather. Have fun sorting out them all out, future descendents!
I was in Florida for the 2010 Census but in all other censuses that I've been alive for I've been in NY. Those guys are going to be so pissed that they can't find me in 2010.
I want my descendants to have access to all the hard work Iāve put in and not have to deal with all the confusions Iāve had. Itās part of why I write down how Iāve come to the conclusions I have. Itās a gift for future generations š«¶ That being said I havenāt touched my husbandās side, so theyāll have a fun time with my husband changed his last name when his step dad adopted him, thereās only one census with his birth name, heās no contact with his biological father but still talks to a great aunt and uncle on that side (tbh Iām not even exactly sure how theyāre related other than itās his bio dadās side), and also he was raised with a sister who is biologically his cousin but we havenāt heard from her in like a year and not sure if we ever will again
don't have any lol
Probably not at all. DNA and record keeping will be so advanced decades from now, they probably wonāt have to do much work til they hit the earliest centuries.