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Two people with identical names from a pool of population where the surname is very common. The place of birth is in same county, all you can find is a month/year for birth (which is the same for both people), but the parentage is vague or hard to track. The two people were even in the same branch of service, enlisting roughly around the same time.
I was in brief contact with someone on Facebook to whom I thought I was a third cousin. The information I had on his grandfather (who he never knew. his grandparents divorced in the 1940s, she remarried but her son kept his father's surname) was so close to the person I was researching in my family line. I wasn't absolutely sure, so I made sure that I told this person it was a tenuous investigation. Unfortunately, that person got a little excited ("oh wow! I never knew my grandfather! this could be so interesting!) that I found it embarrassing to say "oops! wrong person! Sorry. BYE!" Not that I was so abrupt
The FB connection was helpful, they supplied that one little bit of information that made the difference between having a correct or trashed branch, and I did turn over to them all the information I had collected about their relative. Still, I haaate when information about people is akin to being one decimal place off.
I've run into "name dopplegangers" a few times in my research.
One of my great-great grandfathers was Nehemiah Nicholson born in 1850 in Camden County NJ.
There is another Nehemiah Nicholson, born 1849 in Camden County, who is my Nehemiah's half-nephew. But their records are all mixed up in several people's trees, and most historical records make it really unclear which Nehemiah it is. And just to torment me, my Nehemiah was married to "Ellen" and the other Nehemiah was married to an "Ella."
To make it even more fun, there is a completely unrelated Nehemiah Nicholson in that county at the same time, but he's a little older, born in Delaware, and served in the Civil War. I found several people wanting my Nehemiah or the half-nephew Nehemiah claiming the Civil War service, even though our Nehemiahs would have been like 12-13 years old (and even if they served at such a young age, it would not have been in a Delaware unit).
For that matter, it can be s surprising how many people have shared the same unusual names.
Seriously.
I've googled a number of names, thinking them so unique that very few people would use them (Bathsheba?), only to find sources pointing to people all over the place with the name.
Mine are known doppelgangers! My grandfather's name is shared 100 times over within our own family. Matter of fact, I have 2 uncles with his first and last name.
It's still happening My fourth cousin and I share the same name (last name common, first name not) were born the same year and grew up in the same city and graduated in the same high school class (160 students in our class, not huge). I used to get called to the principal's office a lot, the principal would take one look and say "not you, the other one" and send me back to class.
My dad and my cousin both shared names and approximate birth years and city of residence with men in her family, and my grandmother got lots of sympathy calls when dad's name doppelganger died.
I've documented this in my tree for future generations. They will be confused.
My grandfather's name is literally one of the most common names in the English-speaking world. I have run into literally hundreds of people with his name.
I have run into this several times. It is common with Irish genealogy because of the whole "clan name" thing, you can have many different families with the same last name, none biologically related all living in the same area. And they are not particularly creative with the first names either with sons named after father and daughters named after the Mother.
My grandfather's name is literally one of the most common names in the English-speaking world. I have run into literally hundreds of people with his name.
John Smith? (my gg-grandfather. boy, am I having fun with that branch )
John Smith? (my gg-grandfather. boy, am I having fun with that branch )
First name, yes.
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My fourth cousin and I share the same name (last name common, first name not) were born the same year and grew up in the same city and graduated in the same high school class (160 students in our class, not huge). I used to get called to the principal's office a lot, the principal would take one look and say "not you, the other one" and send me back to class.
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