Surnames have for
a long time being used for identifying
people who belong to the same family tree or those that are related directly by blood. The history of using these names dates back to a couple of centuries
ago when they were first used as a
way of differentiating family members who shared a common ancestry. The use of the names was mainly necessitated
by fast growing populations that made it quite hard to identify members of a specific family
lineage. However, it’s worth noting that
not all countries across the globe use
these names. For instance, in a country
such as Burma, people do not use these
names.
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How are surnames developed?
The development of surnames
is based on a variety of sources
like the father of the person
using it, personalities, area of residence of a
person and any unique physical attributes of the person among
other sources. Most of these names are however developed
from one’s ancestry in that people take
the names of their ancestors. These names are developed automatically
without any debates or compromises
whatsoever. As such, a person takes the surname that’s
given to him during birth or during other stages of growth.
This means that some of these
names are open to mocking and insults
depending on the nature of the name. in
a continent like Africa, where traditions and customs are still very deep
rooted these names are generated from the
father’s name. This is usually automatic during birth as the
newborn baby takes up the
father’s second name as his/her surname. A specific family tree share names that are closely related to each other.
The history of surnames
For quite a long time now (hundreds of years) , surnames
have become a necessity in most cultures
across the globe. The great resemblance
and uniformity in the names of people
have made it next impossible to differentiate people from the same family tree or lineage.
This is why there has been the need to use a third name as a way of positively
identifying people. Most of these
names ( third names) form common and
unique patterns like those ending in
–man or –er being used to signify a
profession and those that end with -son or –kin being used to signify relation to parents.
On the other hand, names that begin with O’ are used
among the Irish people and
signify ancestry. For example, the name O’Brien signifies that
the person bearing the name is a descends from Brien.
Over the years, there has been massive changes and developments
in surnames. This is because
some of these names have been
corrupted while others have
been translated to different languages.
This has led to the loss of the original meanings of the names with his distortion leading to
completely new meanings of some of the names. Some
families have dropped their ancestral names and replaced them with other names that do
not belong to their ancestry. This
is the main reason why you should not
emphasize too much on these names when studying the history
of your family tree as well as its history.
What’s the importance of
having for a surname
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There are lots of advantages and benefits that are
associated with surnames. The greatest of these benefits is that these names bring about a great feeling of identity. They
enable people to understand who they are as
well as who members of their family
tree are. In addition to this, the names
provide a linkage between the present and past generations. It goes without saying that the names are
very useful when learning more
about your ancestry. This is because they present you with a one of a kind
opportunity to know more about your
ancestors in respect to their professions,
where they lived as well as who
they were related to. However, the names
should not be wholly relied upon when learning more about your fore fathers. This is
because the names could have been distorted thereby having a different
meaning from their original meaning.
Unearthing information and details about your family tree can particularly seem to be
quite hard especially if you do not
have any reliable sources of information for reference. However, this no
longer needs to be the case anymore as
with the use of surnames, you
can be able to get crucial
information on aspects such as on where your
fore fathers lived, the kind of lifestyle they led and the members of your ancestry. These names can also be used to establish the date of birth of individuals especially because there are some unique names that were used in
a specific period of time. Though some
of these names have become extinct or
have been replaced with others with time, the names can still provide reliable details on the
background of a specific family.
Knowing one’s ancestry
is quite important in that it helps in
making it easy to understand one’s blood line. However, this is limited in that it does not apply to people who
are adopted into families but do not
have any blood relationship with the families that they were adopted into. Adoptions date back to centuries ago
when members of a family tree started welcoming other people into their families to
be part of their backgrounds. The surnames of members in a family lineage do not apply to adopted members as the former do not have any blood relationship with family
members.
Learning about your ancestors centers you among your people thus making it easy for you to know who your relatives are and how you are
related to different people in your family lineage.
Research on your surnames through learning more about
your ancestry goes a long way in revealing the traits that may be characterizing your
lifestyle. For example, if you have an undeniable desire to be an entrepreneur,
you may have acquired this desire through
inheritance from your ancestors.
Therefore, researching on your ancestors as well as other people in your
family
tree may provide you with a
great opportunity to solve some of the
mysteries in your life.
