If someone had the same surname as you, would you be related?

Question

Say like, a person from another country had the same surname as you, but you never knew eachother, would you be related? Like a really really really distant cousin or something? Or do you have the same name for no reason?
Thankyou! :")

Answer 1

Depends on whether or not you have a common ancestor.

Like in China, there are lots of people with the same surname who aren't even related by blood. Same goes for the surname "Smith", it is so common that most of the "Smiths" aren't related to each other.



However, when at some point in time an ancestor moved to another country, had children, grandchildren, etc. and they carry on that surname, you will still be related despite decades without contact, because you are related by blood to that one ancestor. When talking about a "distant cousin", you are talking about this kind of family bonds.



Good to know: you will still be able to marry, because it isn't incest when you just have some vague ancestor in common. The connection of blood has worn out over generations.

Answer 2

OK let's skip the assertion that we are all related at some point. Based on surname DNA studies there is about a 25% chance that someone with the same surname as mine had a common male ancestor within the past 1000 years. This is ME and MY surname. Some surnames are more exclusive than others. If we are talking about two white American who have the same surname as my grandmother's maiden name then it's more than 99% certain that they are related through the same common male ancestor who arrived in New Amsterdam in the 1600s. My grandmother had a REALLY exclusive surname. If we are talking about a surname such as Green, Black, White, Johnson, Carpenter, or Fisher then it is less likely that someone with the same surname is related.

Consider this you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents and so on - the number of ancestors doubling from each generation that you go back. In four generations if you look above you will see that you have 30 ancestors. If you continue the calculation for 40 generation or about 1200 years you will come up with around 549,755,813,888 ancestors in that 40th generation alone!!!!! That is more people than were estimated to live on the entire planet at that time. The only way this could work out is for us to be related to some of our ancestors many times over - meaning that some of our more distant ancestors are also our cousins and aunts and uncles if we trace them through different family trees. So yeah, someone with the same last name is probably related to you, but not necessarily because of the surname.

Answer 3

It's possible but not guaranteed for 3 major reasons:



1) Names are essentially words that can originate in more than place. The common example is Lee originated independently in England and China.



2) When surnames were 1st adopted in Europe they identified an individual (not a family) by one of 4 factors: 1) their father's given name 2) a description 3) where they lived or 4) their occupation. There was more than one son of John (Johnson), guy with White hair, guy from a Hill, and guy that was a blacksmith (Smith) and they may not be related at all.



3) Since then names have changed or been adopted for various reasons. German Muellers have become Millers (English variant), no relation to Millers. Vaughns, Baughns, and Vaughans have become Bonds so not all Bonds are related. Colonized or enslaved people often take names from the dominate culture, no relation. Some folks just change their name to something they've heard and like, no relation.



However, it has been said that everyone on earth is related in very distant degrees. Some have said 20th cousins. Some have said everyone in Europe is no more than 14th cousins. Another proposition from DNA studies suggests that everyone alive today is the descendant of a man that lived around 60-140KYA and a woman that lived around 200KYA. So, how related or how distant may influence the semantics here.

Answer 4

Not necessarily. Now someone said we are all related. Yes, genealogy DNA seems so far seems to take everyone's DNA back to Africa, even Northern Europeans. Actually some believe we come from a single set of parents in Africa about 100,000 years ago. Our differences are due to mutations. Some people were not able to survive in certain parts of the world. For instance the sun is rich in Vitamin D. It has been found the miniumum amount of Vitamin D rquired by a black African native is the maximum amount someone of Northern European ancestry should have. Today it isn't such a big deal due to better protective housing and clothing and also Vitamin supplements. As a rule most Europeans did not have a surname until the last melennium. In England most people had one by the end of the 14th century. The Normans instituted them for taxation purposes. Still it was a couple of more centuries before a lot of them were passed down through each generation like we do today. Example; John had 4 sons, Henry, George, Sam and Robert. Henry, if he could write, signed his name Henry son of John. When he took or was assigned a surname he became Henry Jones, Henry Johnson or Henry Johns. However, you have to realize there were other men named John who sons took the name Jones, Johnson or Johns. George was a miller and was known as George the miller and since in the village they lived in they already had a country singer named George Jones and they also had a George Johns and a George Johnson, he took the name George Miller. However, there were other guys of the same occupation that took the name miller. Other occupational names, Baker, Taylor, Smith, Barber, Carpenter, Clark(clerk), Fisher etc etc etc. Sam lived on or near a hill and you guessed it, he became Sam Hill. Just think how many others lived on or near a hill. Names like that can be taken from the town a person lived in and not everyone living in that town are related, or some castle they lived close to and a person can make a mistake in thinking just because they had an ancestor living close to a castle with their surname that somehow they are related to the Lord of the Manor. I have Overtons in my family tree which simply means over town(settlement). Whenever you see the ending ton on an English name it has something to do with a town or settlement. Then there was Robert who had brown hair and he became Robert Brown. Other names like that are Short, Sharp, Little, etc etc. So we don't necessarily all share the same root person of our surname even those of the same national or ethnic origin.

Answer 5

Look up origin of surnames: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_name Pick a name, such as Miller. Miller is an occupational name. Say in Medieval Germany there were 1,000 mills (I have no idea how many; that is just a nice round number) scattered throughout Germany (of course, Germany did not come into existance until about 1858, but that is beside the point). The Mad King decreed everyone must choose a surname. So, across the country, 1,000 men chose Miller, as that is what they did.



Since German (or where Germany now exists) has experienced constant warfare ever since man first set foot there, the people of Germany come from hundreds of various tribes, some Germanic, but many, including Gauls & Huns, not Germanic.



So, at that time (about 1400 A.D.) there are 1,000 Miller families; probably only a few of them were even remotely related at that time.



Some moved to Poland, some to Russia, some to Austria or Switzerland, some to France, the Netherlands, the British Isles...and eventually some swam across the Big Pond to the American Colonies.



They probably weren't related in the first place (that is, not within the past 30+ generations or so), so how would they be related now?



With my own surname, which is an English surname, and before the Invasion by Mexicans one of the most common surnames in America, the British Isles and other places where Europeans migrated to, most of the people I meed by the same surname are blacks.



None of my ancestors (as far as I can track) ever held slaves; some even came to this country as indentured servants, which is a polite way of saying "slave".



The DNA testing companies as well as the genealgy sites claim that if you share a surname with someone that you have a higher chance of being related than if you do not share a common surname.



So, I will say, "It depends..." My grandparents were born in the 1860s; theirs from 1760 to 1790. Going back to Charlemagne and back to Imperial Rome, my families generations average about 35 years for women, 40 for men. So, for my standpoint, since the generations are longer, the chances of being related to someone with the same surname are greatly diminished. But, things are changing: the most common surnames in the U.S. now are Mexican....Giving me an even lesser chance of being related to people by the same surname.



My surname is one of those patronymic names, but the same analogy to Miller applies: people all over the B.I. suddenly started using the same surname.



So, it is not a case of having the same surname for "no reason", but because the same surname applied to so many families and after all, there is a limit to the number of words and hence names available.



More than 1/2 of the surnames at the time of the American Colonies are now extinct; at the same time, new ones are being coined to keep up with the rapid increase of human population.

Answer 6

The answer is that you don't know.

Having the same name does not prove being related, just in itself. There ARE some last names, which occurred in the US (like, being a variation of another name)..and thus, the variation is the "origin" of the name. So, all of them, do wind up being related..because they can be shown to descend from one single person.

In other cases..the name originated way way back, and is NOT due to a relationship. Smith is the easiest example...it originated due to a profession, not a family.

Many surname boards exist...this is because most of them will be searching the same records, often in the same place/time, and the odds are greater that there will be a connection.

You never know unless you actually do the research as to who your ancestor was. In GENERAL, the same name doesn't prove anything.

Answer 7

There is a always the possibility that you are related, but you also have to remember that people can name their children whatever they want. They do not need to use their surname. People can also change their own name. So just because the surname is the same does not mean that you are related.

Answer 8

Generally no, you could be however you would have to research your ancestry and they would have to research theirs to find out if you had a common ancestor.............when people acquired their surnames in Europe it was done in several way, what people looked like, what work they did, where they lived etc etc............so John who lived by a Hill was called John Hill and there may be many John's who lived near Hill's across the country but just because they had the same name didn't make them related in anyway.......................... for more information about surname origins http://familytimeline.webs.com/originsofsurnames.htm

Answer 9

Like Smith or King you mean.



They must be related there could only be one Steve King .



Oops I know 5



and also isn't there an Author of the same name.?

Answer 10

Maybe.



Most of the people named Cady in the USA descend from Nicholas, who came to what was then the howling wilderness of Massachusetts in the early 1600's.



If your name is "Smith", because your great grandfather changed it from "Schmidt" during the anti-German period of WWI, and you meet a man from England also named "Smith", then no, you are not related.



There are people named "Paulson" - which means "son of Paul" - in many Christian countries. Paul was one of the people who wrote the Bible and he is quite popular. When there got to be too many people named just "John" in a village, the one whose father was Paul became John Paulson, the one who was a carpenter became John Carpenter, and the one who lived near the village green became John Green.

Answer 11

no. there are surnames that imply what job the other person was doing, hence the surname Miller for example. and of course if someone was doing the same job as someone else it doesn't mean that they are relatives

Answer 12

If your last name was something like Shuezenschauzerheimlin, then maybe, but if it's very common, then it's doubtful. The only way to tell is either trace your ancestors, or have a DNA test done.

Answer 13

Depends on the commonality of that sir name in your country or the other country. Smith is a very common sir name, and they defiantly aren't all related.

Answer 14

Well.... I don't think that Bruce Lee was related to Robert E. Lee..... so No, not necessarily.

Answer 15

doubt it. i have someone who has the same name as me. im jonathan garza. there is another one of me in texas.

Answer 16

Stupid *** question.