Family feud

[snopes]

Comment: My maiden name is Mekkelson, I would like to ask some questions about your
family history if you don't mind.

My two sisters and our Mother traveled to Denmark to research our Dad's
family, to discover that the name basically is as common as Smith or
Jones. The meaning is son of Michael.... and our spelling, according to
the archives we got into should be more like Mikklesen.

Would you like to correspond a bit more on the subject? Please let me
know. Thanks!

[One-Fang]

What's the point of posting this one? Okay, so you might not be interested, but so what? It seems unsurprising that a person into genealogy would contact someone with a similar family name and ask this.

[snopes]

Comment: Couldn't help noticing that your last name is Mikkelson. Are you, by
chance, Danish? My great-great grandfather was Jacob Mikkelson, his son
was Mikkel Jacobsen, Mikkel's son was Vilhelm Jacobsen, and my father is
Dewey Jacobsen.

I'm on a genealogy hunt in preparation for going to Denmark in the summer,
and I just couldn't help but notice your last name and had to make the
inquiry.

[Cervus]

Hey, snopes, my father's name is David, too. Could we be related?

[Nonny Mouse]

Do we have to start paying snopes Danegeld now?

Nonny

[DrFraud]

I originally read that as "playing snopes Danegeld," which prompted me to come up with a set of rules involving guessing whether a particular UL was true, false or undetermined. (Which, come to think of it, could actually make for a semi-decent party game or something.)

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by One-Fang

What's the point of posting this one? Okay, so you might not be interested, but so what? It seems unsurprising that a person into genealogy would contact someone with a similar family name and ask this.

I can never understand the assumption that when snopes posts a comment on the board he must be making fun of it or just dismissing it as "uninteresting". I guess there are a few threads specifically for that type of post but what makes you think this is one of them?

[snopes]

Comment: This info request is way off the snopes road. Any info in your
family about the Mikkelson ancestors? I ask because we had Finn-Swede
Mickelson ancestors from Narpas, Finland.

[Johnny Slick]

Are you related to David Hasselhoff?

[Andrew of Ware]

Originally Posted by DrFraud

I originally read that as "playing snopes Danegeld," which prompted me to come up with a set of rules involving guessing whether a particular UL was true, false or undetermined. (Which, come to think of it, could actually make for a semi-decent party game or something.)

There was, and maybe still is, a game show on BBC Radio4 called 'Rumours' in which the contestants had to do just that.

[Canuckistan]

Originally Posted by Dr. Winston O'Boogie

I agree with the question - what's so funny about these, unless it's just that David got a whole bunch of these at one time out of the blue.

Why does it have to be funny? I disagree with the premise that everything in this forum is necessarily here for us to make fun of. That may be what happens, but snopes can post whatever he feels like, for whatever purpose he deems fit.

Besides, I find it annoying when people ask if I'm related simply because we share the same last name. I mean, what are the odds of two people sharing the same last name?!?

[Dr. Dave]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: Couldn't help noticing that your last name is Mikkelson. Are you, by
chance, Danish? My great-great grandfather was Jacob Mikkelson, his son
was Mikkel Jacobsen, Mikkel's son was Vilhelm Jacobsen, and my father is
Dewey Jacobsen.

Based on the original pattern, shouldn't Mikkel's son have been Vilhelm Mikkelson (Milkkelsen?), and then dad have been Dewey Vilhelmsen?

Maybe Mikkel got to America, and that was the end of changing names, or maybe they just adopted a more modern naming traditon at that point.

-Dr. Dave "Paulson", father of Josh "Davidson" (or Josh "Ben David")

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

Are you related to David Hasselhoff?

God I hope not.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Canuckistan

Besides, I find it annoying when people ask if I'm related simply because we share the same last name. I mean, what are the odds of two people sharing the same last name?!?

Plus, what are the odds that I'm going to divulge personal information to total strangers simply because they write to us and claim their last name is some variant of 'Mikkelson'?

- snopes

[One-Fang]

In the genealogy world - good odds.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by One-Fang

In the genealogy world - good odds.

In the world of warning people how to avoid scams and identity theft (which is the world we inhabit), practically zero.

- snopes

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by snopes

Plus, what are the odds that I'm going to divulge personal information to total strangers simply because they write to us and claim their last name is some variant of 'Mikkelson'?

now that we know we're related, i'm waiting 4 u 2 send a copy of ur birth certificate so i can put you on r family tree. thx n advance

[One-Fang]

You can live in two worlds.

[Johnny Slick]

I have a fairly odd last name that's also the same as a couple of celebrities, and I get people asking if I'm related to them all the time (the American one moreso than the British one, of course). It's sort of annoying; it's not common but it isn't *that* out of the ordinary. I imagine that Mikkelsen is not all that strange a name itself in some parts of the world, as it's basically a Scandinavian version of Michaelson.

snopes never did respond as to whether or not he's related to the Hoff, however, so I have to assume that the answer to that is "actually, I am David Hasselhoff and go by David Mikkelson to throw people off."

[Hapax Legomena]

I don't want to sound snarky, but how likely is the possibility that, say, giving out your great-grandmother's name to someone is going to put you at risk for identity theft? If it was really an issue, then all of Ancestry.com is a hotbed of personal info waiting to be phished. I received a letter in the mail a couple of years ago from someone in Sweden with the same last name as my maiden name, asking if we might be related. I joked at the time that with my luck it was probably some sort of elaborate identity theft, but we corresponded a bit and determined that we were not likely related and I'm pretty sure that the info I gave was of no use to anyone but a family researcher. I understand that some people are not interested in this sort of thing, but I personally find it fascinating.