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Old 02-06-2011, 07:15 PM
 
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I did a little research into my husband's family recently.For his great grandparents I found 2 probable couples, who died in the same year, and lived in the same general area, same last name, wives had the same first and middle names, just reversed, husbands had the same first and middle initials, and both would have been nicknamed Al. They were not related to each other.
One set were his gg, one set wasn't.
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Old 02-07-2011, 08:23 AM
 
Location: DC
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Originally Posted by 2cold View Post
I did a little research into my husband's family recently.For his great grandparents I found 2 probable couples, who died in the same year, and lived in the same general area, same last name, wives had the same first and middle names, just reversed, husbands had the same first and middle initials, and both would have been nicknamed Al. They were not related to each other.
One set were his gg, one set wasn't.
How did you separate them? Tough problem. I have that for a pre-Civil War ancestor with the last name of Carroll. The population of Carrolls in that part of the South is so large that tracking this back to a single individual is virtually impossible.
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Old 02-08-2011, 08:34 AM
 
Location: Dalton Gardens
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Originally Posted by DCforever View Post
How did you separate them? Tough problem. I have that for a pre-Civil War ancestor with the last name of Carroll. The population of Carrolls in that part of the South is so large that tracking this back to a single individual is virtually impossible.
I usually work through the children (if known) to sort out this type of problem. At least one of the children's vital records is bound to list both parents, with the mother's maiden name. However, if they had no siblings you obviously can't use this method. Another option is to look for local histories which might distinguish between two families which had the same names.

I have an ancestress who would change up between her fisrt and middle names. On one census she would be listed as Mary and on another it would be Elizabeth. Her actual name was Mary Elizabeth.
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Old 02-08-2011, 09:21 AM
 
Location: DC
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Originally Posted by Cyanna View Post
I usually work through the children (if known) to sort out this type of problem. At least one of the children's vital records is bound to list both parents, with the mother's maiden name. However, if they had no siblings you obviously can't use this method. Another option is to look for local histories which might distinguish between two families which had the same names.

I have an ancestress who would change up between her fisrt and middle names. On one census she would be listed as Mary and on another it would be Elizabeth. Her actual name was Mary Elizabeth.
I can't identify his original family and before 1850 the Census didn't enumerate family member names. Within a 100 mile radius I must have 20 possibilities.
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Old 02-08-2011, 04:13 PM
 
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Sometimes people just make mistakes...even on original documents. My Dad died a year ago. My sister was the one that filled out the death certificate information. She is a bit of an airhead and when they asked her for "mother's maiden name" she gave our mother's maiden name instead of Dad's. So doing a family tree down the road, someone is going to think he married his own mother.

We did get it amended, but in California they don't issue a new certificate, they staple an amendment paper to that one. You just never know what kind of odd mistakes people made when it came to remembering dates and names.
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Old 02-08-2011, 04:32 PM
 
Location: Dalton Gardens
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Originally Posted by DCforever View Post
I can't identify his original family and before 1850 the Census didn't enumerate family member names. Within a 100 mile radius I must have 20 possibilities.
That makes things very difficult!

So, what information do you have? I'm assuming you don't have the names of your ancestor's siblings, but I'm wondering if his children's names could be a clue? Have you tried searching through old newspapers on Genealogy Bank?
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Old 02-09-2011, 08:22 AM
 
Location: DC
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Originally Posted by Cyanna View Post
That makes things very difficult!

So, what information do you have? I'm assuming you don't have the names of your ancestor's siblings, but I'm wondering if his children's names could be a clue? Have you tried searching through old newspapers on Genealogy Bank?
I do have his children's names and have been looking. I think my next effort will be to track all the John Carroll from Alabama and see if I can eliminate some and narrow the field. Instead of fnding my John Carroll, I'll eliminate other John Carrolls.

The problem is large families and cousins with identical names...... It's what makes genealogy a lifelong pursuit. There's always a door you are trying to open.
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