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Position:Home>Genealogy> If your surname is dieing off because of lack of males, how do you keep your sur


Question:Copy the Queen of England: her heirs with the notable exception of the heir to the throne and his family are now Mountbatten-Windsors, appending the surname of her husband*, the Duke of Edinburgh, to the British royal family's surname of Windsor**. Similar, the descendants of the Duke of Marlborough are now Spencer-Churchills instead of just Churchills. Of course, Ted Pack is right--it helps to keep a palace or a castle handy.

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* Anglicized from the German surname Battenburg.
**Formerly known as Saxe-Coburg Gotha before World War I.


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Copy the Queen of England: her heirs with the notable exception of the heir to the throne and his family are now Mountbatten-Windsors, appending the surname of her husband*, the Duke of Edinburgh, to the British royal family's surname of Windsor**. Similar, the descendants of the Duke of Marlborough are now Spencer-Churchills instead of just Churchills. Of course, Ted Pack is right--it helps to keep a palace or a castle handy.

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* Anglicized from the German surname Battenburg.
**Formerly known as Saxe-Coburg Gotha before World War I.

adoption?

lack of males?????? what world do you live in?

Besides adopting there is no way, unless your daughter (if you have one) keeps her maiden name and passes it on to her children, but now days I doubt seeing that happen. I am the last of my surname and it hurt my dad a little I think. Oh well all good things have to end. happy new year.

Marry cousins???

One of the daughters could marry a man by the same surname, not related of course or the man could take the womans surname. My cousin's husband took her surname. Most males I know though are proud of their surnames and wouldn't go for this option. The only other option I can think of is to hyphenate the surnames to create a compound name, making it possible for the females surname to live on.

If you are truly talking surname in general, it will stay alive through other non-related lines. If you have an exceptionally unique surname, it is likely it was "created" either by an unusual spelling by some clerk somewhere from a more common spelling or was made up to begin with.

My wife is the perfect example. The family was originally Stuckhold (and about 30 variant spellings of that). Her great uncle immigrated to the US. When he did, being a purveyor of women's intimates, he though having a nice French surname would be better for his business than a Polish Jewish name. So when he came through Ellis Island, he TRIED to make up a nice French surname Goulet. Unfortunately, the clerk at Ellis Island made a rather unique typo. Thus his new surname became absolutely unique. When his brothers came over to the US, prior to coming over, they too took this surname (with the misspelling) so that there would be no question as to their relationship with their US sponsor (brothers with different surnames would have caused suspicion). Well, two of the brothers never had children. The third had a son and two daughters (daughters never married). That son (with the surname) had three daughters, one being my wife. With no males left, that surname is going to disappear. BUT, it only appeared in 1910 because of an Ellis Island typo.

My wife (and both of her sisters) use that surname as their middle name. But in fact it has disappeared as a surname because my wife's father (the last with that surname) has passed away.

But the "real" family name - Stuckhold - is alive and well and will be for a long, long time.

I had an ancestor in the 1400's who promised his castle and lands to anyone who would marry his daughter and change his name to hers. It worked for them. You'd have to have a castle, though.