Caveat: not a lawyer. Was there an intent to deceive? It doesn't sound like it at any level. I think it's legit. Jill On Dec 29, 2012, at 11:14 AM, "Michele Lewis" <ancestoring@gmail.com> wrote: > One of my uncles was quite a rogue in his youth. He got mad at my > grandparents back in the late 70s so he changed his surname to one he made > up. It isn't a real surname. It sounds like an American Indian name and > very romantic sounding but is isn't a legitimate surname :) He also > changed his first name though that wasn't a dramatic change and people who > knew his given name would have just thought it was a shortened nickname. He > later turned his life around, got married, went to college and became a > teacher. His wife took the same last name. Apparently when they got > married he didn't have to actually prove that was his legal name. They had > one daughter and her birth certificate has this same name on it. This > daughter got married and her husband took HER surname (I can't blame him. > It is really a cool name). My uncle ended up writing two nationally > published middle school textbooks under his assumed name. It is funny to me > when I see his books on Amazon! > > Here is the interesting part. None of the extended family had no idea he > had done any of this. Everyone would see him at reunions and such and they > had no clue he had been living under a totally different name for over 40 > years! No one had a clue that his wife and child were living under this same > new name. Everyone thought their last name was the uncle's birth surname. > Guess how everyone figured it out. Facebook. My uncle is not on Facebook > but his daughter is. Myself and the other genealogists in the family > routinely comb Facebook for possible kin. The daughter has an older half > brother (from my uncle's first marriage) that has the correct surname. The > daughter has an unusual first name so when I was looking at the list of > friends for my cousin (the older half brother) I saw a girl with this > unusual first name but with this cool Indian sounding last name. I knew it > was my cousin but I wrongly assumed she had married someone with that cool > last name and that is how she ended up with it. When I went to her page I > saw her mother (my uncle's wife) with that same last name so then I realized > something was wrong. > > That is when I tracked down the birth certificate for the daughter (Texas > is very generous with their records) and it shows my uncle and his wife with > this unusual last name. When I went to the daughter's friend page, I found > her husband and then looked at his page. Both of his parents were listed > (and they had been married forever) and they had a different last name so he > had dropped his ordinary last name and took his wife's cool name. > > I called my other uncle (the oldest of the siblings) and asked him about it. > That is when he related the story to me and told me that no one in the > family knew any of this, including my own father (2nd oldest child and just > older than the man in question). I thought the whole thing was absolutely > fascinating. > > Believe it or not, there is a question in all of this. When my uncle got > married, he gave a false name. His wife took that false name as her own (I > assume she knew it was false considering all of his siblings had a different > last name and his parents had only been married to each other). Their child > is also named this false name. LEGALLY, what does it all mean? Is the > wife's legal name really the false name or is it my uncle's real last name? > What about the child? > > Michele > > The Transitional Genealogists List was created to provide a supportive environment for genealogists to learn best practices as they transition to professional level work. Please respect the kind intentions of this list. > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message