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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2006-05 > 1147982665


From: "Lawrence Mayka" <>
Subject: RE: Rethinking Non-Surname Matches
Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 15:04:25 -0500
In-Reply-To: <3f5.2da3292.319de5c0@aol.com>


> From: [mailto:]
> I'd like to suggest that it's time rethink our approach of
> dismissing
> matches with other surnames.

The emphasis on surnames has always been somewhat misleading because it is
so culturally dependent. In some parts of Europe, surnames did not
stabilize until the end of serfdom around 1850:

http://www.polishroots.org/genpoland/surnames.htm
---
Peasants didn't have surnames in our contemporary meaning of the word
surnames until practically the late 1600's. They were using nicknames to
discriminate between people with the same Christian name, but these were
generally not passed from generation to generation. This custom appeared in
the first half of the 18th century, at first in the Western parts of Poland
and then later in the East. Despite this, within the next 100 years,
surnames were often modified within a given family both by spelling and by
suffixes. After 1850 the practice of developing surnames had mostly ended
throughout the entire population.
---

In some other parts of the world, surnames may not have become universal and
stable until even later.


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