In some countries, the idea of a family name or a surname is more recent. Since people in the United States generally follow English-style naming customs, it is relevant to know that the concept of a surname spread gradually throughout Europe and became widespread in Britain towards the end of the Middle Ages.īy the 1500’s, most people were using surnames in Britain. The concept of surnames is a relatively new one in the western world, though surnames have been in use in China since the 2nd century BC. Maybe you don’t share a surname with your match because your common ancestor didn’t have a surname It means only that they haven’t tested – nothing more, nothing less.įor inquiring minds interested about my Dutch genealogy search, I was able to get my great-uncle to take a DNA test for me, and since his DNA is “more Dutch” than mine, we were able to cast a wider net and find more Dutch cousins – including some with my Dutch surname. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t related to them, or that there is something untoward in your family history. So in some families (or countries, as in my case) it might be less likely that people will take a DNA test for genealogy.Īnd if your relatives don’t take a DNA test, then you won’t find their names on your DNA match list. To some, even here in the US, it might even be viewed as insulting to imply that there is something to be learned through DNA testing. In other words, they already know about their family tree! I have since learned that the Netherlands and the Dutch people are excellent record keepers, and most people know everything about their family many generations back, so many Dutch people don’t see a need for doing a DNA test to learn about their family tree. I uploaded my DNA to other sites, and still I found nothing. When I first did my autosomal DNA test, I didn’t see anyone with my Dutch maiden name on my match list. My dad’s father is the son of children of Dutch and German immigrants. Whether or not your relatives have taken a DNA test is a game of change – or not
You’ll easily spot which lines of your family were the most prolific, since their descendants will pop up again and again on your match list. The more you know about your ancestors – all of their children, even the ones that you aren’t directly descended from, also known as collateral ancestors – the more you will know about the surnames that you should be looking for among your DNA matches. The result of this pattern of surname inheritance means that you need to be on the lookout for multiple surnames in your family tree. This is because her Rollins mother married a Harig, and the Rollins name didn’t get passed down. Martha Harig, who is one generation closer to the set of common ancestors, does not share the Rollins surname – even though she is more closely related to G. Mark and Sami are fourth cousins, yet do not share a surname. At the bottom of the graphic, Mark Rollins and Sami Jones are on the same generation. Males are in blue, and females are in pink – and you can see that when a pink descendant has a union with a blue person, they take on that person’s surname. Smithers are the most recent common ancestors of everyone else listed in the tree (except for spouses of the descendants). In order to illustrate this to you, just so you can visualize how quickly a surname can disappear in a family, I made the chart below. The daughter will take her husband’s name, and her children, the grandchildren of her father, will not share his surname.Īll of the people descended from the same common ancestor are related to each other, whether or not they share a surname.
If he has two sons and a daughter, like in the diagram below, only the sons will carry the surname. If the father only has female children, then the surname does not continue on his line. In the US and in most other countries, surnames are passed down from a father to his children, but only those male children will pass down their father’s surname to their children. Only direct descendants of the male ancestor who shares your last name will share surnames with you There are several reasons behind this, and I’ll give you more explanation in detail below. In this post, I’ll address these questions – and more.Īs it turns out, it’s completely normal to not find very many surname matches among your distant cousin DNA matches.
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