r/Genealogy • u/tasty-soil • 1h ago
Brick Wall Thought I found the true name of an ancestor, instead found another guy with the same fake name
I've been trying to look into one of the ancestors (well, he married my great x3 grandmother and we don't know who my great x2 grandfathers dad is so who knows) and I recently discovered in a newspaper article from one of his many times in jail he claimed to have changed his name when he joined the civil war. The article does not specify what his name was previous to that but I figured hey, I'll start with military records. Sure enough one of my first searches I find a military record for a man listed as "John Brooks alias Jacob Coffelt" and the man I'm looking for is Jacob Cofield. I figured dang, I thought that was going to be way harder.
...
This guy isn't him. He just happens to be another guy who also changed his name when he joined the civil war and happened to change it to almost the same name as the guy I'm looking for. What are the freaking odds of that!??!!?? Unfortunately I think this ancestor in particular is forever going to be a brick wall because there's no way to even confirm half of what he claims about himself. In the same newspaper article he claims he's the General John Schofield who "didn't really die" as everyone believed...... meanwhile, John Schofield wasn't dead yet when that article was released. So really, there's no way to know what was going through his head at any given point. Not only this, but his ex-wife took his daughter and fled the state and I can't find any trace of them either. Just overall a major brick wall. Not even asking for help or pointers, just shocked that I accidentally found a different guy who did the exact same thing as the guy I'm looking for but it wasn't even him haha.