are you still looking for an elusive maiden name in your family tree today
I'll give you three new suggestions to help you uncover it and discover a new family line
there are hundreds if not thousands of articles online about various ways to discover the
maiden names of our female ancestors it is a common genealogical topic because women are so
often merged completely with their husbands into historical records that their original identities
disappear completely the cultural norms of times past going from the introduction of surnames
about a thousand years ago to only a generation or two ago for most of us meant that women normally
never referred to their maiden names again after marriage they often didn't even go by their first
names either mrs. John Smith was a common way for a woman to introduce herself just putting
a missus on her husband's name it was entirely possible that someone could know her for years
and be good friends with her without ever knowing her actual name most of the time no one would even
think to ask thank goodness times are changing it will make it easier for our descendants to locate
female ancestors from our generation going forward many women are now keeping their maiden names upon
marriage - aiding them with their husband's last name changing their middle name to their maiden
name and using other ways to keep their maiden name alive in the records as belonging to them
however if we want to find our female ancestors we're going to have to do some searching while
finding a maiden name is sometimes as easy as looking at a death certificate marriage
certificate obituary or marriage announcement in an old newspaper or even researching someone's
will who names a married daughter and thus reveals the maiden name it is not always so simple if
you've tried all of the most common suggestions given in most genealogical publications for
finding maiden names of female ancestors and have still come up empty-handed here are a few
more suggestions for you that may help you finally connect with that elusive female family line match
up birth records and marriage records if your ancestor lived in an area that kept excellent
records that are still preserved this is a good trick to use New England is a perfect place to use
this technique actually but there are other places it will work as well you probably already have a
good idea of your female ancestors age or at least an age range look through the birth records of the
town she lived in as a child if you know it check the years that are candidates for her birth year
if you only find one person with her first name as a candidate she will almost certainly match up in
the marriage records if you find more than one candidate write those names down in a list then
look through the marriage records in the decade before and after her most likely marriage age
window usually between the ages of 18 and 23 look for a woman with her name marrying a man with her
known married name you may have to check the records of some of the surrounding towns too
as not every person married someone from their hometown but often married within the general
regional area when you have a match between the birth records and the marriage records for
someone in the same place and about the same age as your female ancestor you found the maiden name
look at the middle names of her children women of centuries past often tried to keep their maiden
names alive by giving them to their children as middle names in my own family there is a middle
name used for men that I have traced back to the maiden name of a distant great-grandmother born in
the early 1700s it's been passed down this whole time and continues to be in the newest generation
any middle name that sounds like it could be a surname is worth investigating look for neighbors
the woman had after she was married do any of them have surnames that match the middle names of any
of her children they might be relatives look at her husband's neighbors when he was a child do any
of them have surnames that matched those middle names he could have grown up near his future bride
one of my own sets of great great-grandparents were next-door neighbors as children check the
Wills of any neighbors with surnames that match her children's middle names too you just might
find mention of her and a confirmation of her maiden name do autosomal DNA research this is a
modern research technique but it can work wonders autosomal DNA tests all areas of your heritage
not just a male or female line if you do the test with a company that allows genetic matching such
as 23andme ancestry or Family Tree DNA you might find some genetic cousins from the area where your
elusive family ancestor lived chances are they are related to her too if not directly then through
another common ancestor if you contact them and ask for information on that side of the family
they may have a family Bible or other confirmation of her maiden name if they don't then comparing
your family trees and working back to your common ancestor together may reveal it or a name you
suspect to be her maiden name you can then confirm it by looking to see if you have any close genetic
matches with the same surname as the one you suspect to be your female ancestors I've confirmed
two suspected maiden names in my family tree using genetic matches on autosomal DNA testing
websites these methods require more time and intensive research than you may be used to but if
you put the time into doing the research and are fastidious about it the chances are pretty high
that you will come up with that elusive maiden name for your mysterious female ancestor that of
course will make all the research worth it do you have japanese-american ancestry if so join me the
next time as you'll learn more about Japanese internment during World War two and records
concerning the real people involved copyright by ancestral findings all rights reserved
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