Usually, when a female ancestor married, she changed her surname to her husband's, often never using her maiden surname again.

This abrupt name change at about the age of 20, can cause a broken branch on even the most intrepid tree-climber's tree.

If you have a normal pedigree, you may have several such broken branches with no name or only a first name, such as Elizabeth, Anne or Mary, or maybe just a nickname for those names: Betsy, Betty, Eliza or Lizzie for Elizabeth; Hannah or Nan for Anne; Polly or Molly for Mary. But all is not lost! You may yet be able to add a maiden surname to those given names. Following are strategies that may help.

First, as always, inspect your own family records. You've already done this, I know. But after several months or years of research, you know more, you have accumulated additional records. Maybe you have a given name now that you didn't have the first time you went through the family stuff. And maybe the woman's surname has been given to children or grandchildren as part of their names.

So look at the names of the children. For example, A. P. Free married Martha and had two sons before Martha died. The first son was named Andrew Free which was A. P. Free's father's name. The second son was named John Belcher Free. Is it too much to suppose that Martha's father was John Belcher? So her maiden name could be Belcher. It makes a good hypothesis for further research.

Second, check the family records belonging to other people. On a research trip in Illinois, I concentrated on pedigrees and family group sheets submitted by members of the two genealogical societies covering my ancestors' counties: the St. Clair County and Washington County Genealogical Societies.

In a history of the Beckmeyer family, the wife of one son was given as Augusta Tree. There were no Trees in the county at that time, and from time to time Free is indexed as Tree. Sure enough, following up on that clue, there in the Washington County Marriage Records was the entry for Augusta Free marrying Frederick Beckmeier on Nov. 30, 1866.

Which segues nicely into the third strategy for finding a woman's maiden name: find the county (or city) marriage record. Marriages are legal contracts so they can be found, in the United States at least, from the 1700s and sometimes before, to 2005. They are also matters of public record, so they are available to researchers.

Having said that, remember that marriage records give less and less information the more distant the time in which they were recorded. I have photocopies of some that are nearly unreadable, with chewed and ragged edges, so the top and bottom names on the page are gone forever.

Still, genealogists like to think marriage records' purpose is to reveal the maiden names. Consequently, many are published and indexed. But the truth is, there's nothing like standing in the courthouse and flipping through pages written 200 years ago and finding an ancestor's maiden name. Wow! You're touching the very same page that ancestor touched so many years ago. While in the courthouse, be sure to check the divorce records.

The fourth strategy is so common, I'll only mention it: Check the big databases such as FamilySearch, Ancestry.com and Genealogy.com. Perhaps someone else has already found your ancestor's maiden name. But when you find such a name, do your own research! There are so many errors.

The fifth strategy works pretty well for the most recent 100 years. It is to search newspapers for your family. Sometimes obituaries give maiden names. Sometimes, the children's obituaries give the mother's maiden name. You may find marriage and engagement announcements in the local paper. Divorces are often listed in 20th century papers. Many newspapers are available on microfilm and are a hoot to search.

Strategy six is to search Daughters of the American Revolution Bible records, a subject for a future column.

Sometimes the census can give useful clues to a wife's maiden name, which is strategy seven. Fairly often, censuses will include a mother-in-law, a brother-in-law, or some other in-law in a household. There is some probability the in-laws' surname will be the wife's maiden name. Check up on it because even mother-in-laws may have married more than once.

Eighth, deeds often reveal the wife's given name -- but they can provide more than that. Some land descriptions name neighbors who may be the wife's relatives. For example, Andrew and Mary Free owned land in early Tennessee next door to Absalom Pennington, who, as further research showed, was the father of Mary.

Plotting land ownership on maps can sometimes reveal the father or brother of a woman, thereby providing her surname. As with all legal documents, the names of the witnesses will almost certainly include one or more relatives.

It is also possible to find maiden names in probate records. But that, too, is a procedure for another column.

There is one aid essential to finding female maiden names. It is Reassembling Female Lives, a National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Volume 88, Number 3, Sept. 2000, available for about $7 at NGS Bookstore, 4527 Seventeenth Street North, Arlington, VA 22207-2399 or e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

You can reach LaRae Free Kerr, who has been searching for maiden names in Illinois and Missouri, at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it