> > I am 22 years young and I have been told that my last name isn't > > what it is. I haven't got much information cause nobody seems to > > know or willing to talk, but is there a way that I can work back > > from the name I have now to find what it was originally? I think it > > is kind of a stretch, but shouldn't it be registered with the > > government when it was changed? I have no idea what I am talking > > about, so any help on researching and what not would be greatly > > appreciated. > > > > "Stinger" <tsting321@yahoo.com> > > historically last names are a new invention > > in Iceland everybody is someone's son or daughter > > no new family names allowed since 1911 > > > get your birth certificate > > find out if your parents were married > > "Hugh Watkins" <hugh_watkins@net.dialog.dk> I see that Hugh is still having difficulty with his caps key. I was so in hopes he would be able to get it fixed. While it is true that "in Iceland everyone is someone's son or daughter, I think you will find this is true in most other places in the world <g>. The difference is that the records in the other places aren't as well kept. I am going to take a guess and suppose that the original post was not from Iceland and offer some links that may help. Others have suggested some good approaches to the original poster in order for her to solve her problem. At this page on RootsWeb, there are some good articles that seem tailor-made for this question: http://rwguide.rootsweb.com/ Look in the upper left corner for these links: o Where to Begin? o What is the Question? o Why You Can't Find Them o What's in a Name? The first two are a good starting place for beginners. The other two deal with the significance of surnames. One of the things you can learn from them is that a great many persons now have surnames that are different from what they once were. They also will tell you that the changes largely came about by chance and thus are not recorded. A great many of them are simply phonetic renderings of the previous surname. For instance, my surname is now PENCE. When my paternal ancestor came to America the name was BENTZ. Pence is how the Germans pronounced the name and how the English-speaking clerks wrote it. Regards, Richard "Richard A. Pence" <richardpence@pipeline.com>