Often when two men born about the same time are living in the same area, the temptation is to hypothesize that they are cousins. That’s not the only possible scenario. They could be uncle and nephew or related in a different way.
If the last name is common, always be open to the possibility that they are not related. However, if they are appearing on each other’s documents (as witnesses, near neighbors, etc.), then there’s probably a connection. Don’t just assume that they are cousins.
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I’ve found that issue currently.Can be so frustrating!
Exactly!
My Dad – George Everett ******
My dad’s uncle (father’s brother) – George Everett ******
My dad’s cousin (above uncle’s son) – Everett George ******
So glad I knew them all!
I’ve shared this before, but it fits here also. My father’s name, Angelo Brusati, was not a common name. He lived in Detroit. His wages were garnished — not for his debt, but for the debt of another Angelo Brusati who also lived in Detroit with an unlisted phone number (for obvious reasons!). The attorney said (when my furious mother called) that he just looked it up in the phone book. After all, how many Angelo Brusati’s could there be in Detroit. More than one! and not related!
That’s a good example. In urban areas with immigrants there can easily be more than one person with a seemingly uncommon name that are not related–especially if the last name is more common in the home country than people realize.
Years ago, my husband’s Diners Club bill was confused with another person’s having the exact same unusual (for the US) Italian name, living in a different state. This fellow owned a construction company and the bill was huge, compared to what we were expecting. After the mess was sorted out he called and it turned out there was no relation.
I had an interesting conundrum with this type of situation. I found that a genealogy website’s info did not jive with what I knew about a 3xgr aunt. They had the wrong husband attached to my ancestry tree on their website. I had an affadavit from a brother’s civil war pension file record in which my ancestor stated clearly her family connections which disproved the info on the website. With the help of Robert Chenard (French genealogy), he was able to look up the descrepancy in his records of French Canadian marriages. It turned out that my ancestor and this other female were first cousins, born ten days apart and with the same given names. Of course on census records they could easily be mistaken for one another. Coincidentally, their fathers were brothers born on the SAME DAY, but two years apart. Along with obituaries and news articles, plus the pension file, I was able to sort it out. Funny thing is that this aunt was widowed twice and married three times, but still, she was not her cousin.