As folks know, I’ve recently been researching my family tree. Part of this involves going to ancestry.com and doing various searches. In this, I’ve discovered a new appreciation for weird names. After all, doing searches on names like “Charles Meyer” or “Richard Meyer” gives far too much information to narrow things down. On the other hand, there aren’t that many “Hobart Meyer”s or “Julia Powell”s. So, those of you that have weird spellings in your name, take solace in the fact that future genealogists will have an easier time finding you. To that end, I also applaud every woman that retained her maiden name. Again, it is much easier to track your line when you do this; often, when women get married, it becomes difficult to ever find them again.
Of course, if you want to hide, change your name to something generic: John Smith, David Miller, Sam Gold.
P.S.: As this post relates to the unintended benefits of things, I’ll add one more, which was noted by a friend of mine: The whole political silly season has had a positive benefits: at least the political ads have pushed off the Christmas advertising. I expect the Christmas music to start on election day (sigh).
