If someone (in the world or near you) has the same last name as you do does that make them related to you?

[Shirley T]

We are all related if we go back far enough but the root person of your surname will not necessarily be the root person of someone else with your surname..

When surnames were assigned or taken in Europe during the last millennium it wasn't impossible for legitimate sons of the same man to wind up with a different surname and still each could have shared his surname with others with no known relationship. In England most had one by the end of the 14th century. Still in many cases it was a couple of more centuries before the same surname was passed down to subsequent generations. The purpose for them was not to identify a person as a member of a family but for taxation purposes. Too many Homers, Freds, Johns and Henrys in the same town or village and they had to have a way of telling them apart.

A lot of people get taken in by surname product peddlers. They will sell you framed surname histories, books that purport to give you your surname background, coats of arms(they usually use the misnomer family crest) like they belong to everyone with the same surname. The surname product business is a scam.