From: jdbeard@patriot.net   
      
   On 05/29/2012 09:05 PM, Adam wrote:   
   > Jim Beard wrote:   
   >> On 05/29/2012 03:58 PM, Adam wrote:   
   >>> What I was wondering, though, is whether the mother's maiden   
   >>> name counts for family association. For example, could our   
   >>> hypothetical Mr. Wang's parents have been Mr. Wang and the former   
   >>> Miss Shin? If so, would he have any association with the Shin   
   >>> family elsewhere? (My own mother's maiden name is rare enough so   
   >>> that anybody else with it is probably related somehow.)   
   >>   
   >> I do not know. That question never arose, and I never thought   
   >> to ask it.   
   >> I speculate that given the patriarchial system that dominates   
   >> all but a   
   >> few places (yes there are a few small matriarchial societies in   
   >> Asia),   
   >> the distaff line would not carry much if any weight.   
   >   
   > Thanks for the clarification! BTW I tried plugging my mother's   
   > maiden name into Google and it pulled up a total of only six   
   > people, five close relatives and one stranger.   
      
   It might be interesting to find out just how "strange" the sixth   
   one is.  That could be nothing more than a more distant relative.   
      
   My paternal surname is not real common (though not uncommon, I   
   suppose) but there are at least a half-dozen or so major lines   
   with no known associations among them.  Add to that, the name   
   morphs into Baird, Bard, Barde, and at least a dozen less common   
   variants.  One branch was enumerated regularly in 1790-1840   
   Censuses as Baird, but the names on gravestones for those folks   
   are Beard.  A second branch that I have yet to find the exact   
   linkage to, started off as Beard and all land records bear that   
   name, but the books on Colonial-era genealogy list the earliest   
   of that line as Baird, his two sons vascillated between Beard and   
   Bard, and from his grandchildren on down the name has   
   consistently been spelled Bard.   
      
   My great-great-great grandfather died in his mid-30s, and his   
   younger brother married his widow.   Younger brother sometimes   
   went by Baird, sometimes by Beard, and his enlistment in the War   
   of 1812 listed the surname as Baird or Bayard, and those who   
   indexed the old records indexed only Bayard which muddied the   
   waters a good bit.  There is a second record for the war of 1812   
   for a Bard that may also refer to younger brother, but the only   
   reference I have been able to pin down narrows it to a roll of   
   microfilm over 700 pages in length.  I have yet to try to gain   
   access and go through that, in hope of finding what could be only   
   a single mention, and no idea of what context or association so   
   one has to carefully go through every page...  The combination of   
   old handwriting and sometimes poor quality microfilm images does   
   not make searching easy.   
      
   Cheers!   
      
   jim b.   
      
      
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