Creepy goings on.

[solidrock]

There's a person on another site that has most of the names from my fathers side of my family in their tree. The tree is private so I can't see it but the names go from present back to the 1700's. I have contacted the person but they are not very forth coming with information. Their family name has no connection as far as I can see with mine and the only information that I can find about this person is their marriage in the 1990's. I have found a birth that may fit but in that they appear to take the mothers maiden name so I am assuming that she was unmarried. I have been trying for weeks to find the hidden link but nothing. It's getting a bit spooky.

[Thornwood]

I would assume that a child born before marriage would have the mothers 'maiden' name and therefore all descendants in the direct line would have that name. After marriage her children would have her married name and that direct line would have that name. Hence the family tree divides but has the same ancestors. Often the illegitimate child would have been brought up by maternal grandparents with the same surname.
I had this happen in my husband's family and this find has probably been my greatest success as neither of the two families knew of the others existence, we were able to meet up, compare photos for family likenesses and even meet at the grave of our common ancestor.
Hope this is what you meant, sorry if I've completely misunderstood your puzzle.
Thornwood

[aghadowey]

It's quite common for a child born before parents were married to use the father's surname later but I read the original query as more of a puzzle on how the tree owner could be related- perhaps I read it wrong?

Years ago I can across an online tree which included my grandfather's family for several generations. Slowly working through the tree (and it was huge) I discovered that the link was somewhere in his grandmother's family and thought I could pin it down to a particular branch of that family. Interestingly it included many of my early notes on this family (going by unique errors I originally made based on information from my grandfather's cousin). So, I contacted tree owner and then the confusion got worse...
I asked how they were connected to Blackrock Farm (the family residence) and got a reply about a Black family in a completely different area! I sent links to my family on that tree (where it mentioned Blackrock Farm!) and eventually got a reply along the lines of 'I have no idea who those people are. Must have attached them to my tree by mistake' 

[Gardener]

I contacted someone who had my mother's family included in her tree - I hoped to find some living relatives since my mother was an only child and I am not in contact with any of her cousins. It turned out that the tree's owner was connected only by the fact that her husband was cousin to someone who had married one of my mother's cousins, so not much of a connection ;-)

[sleepybarb]

I recently contacted someone who had my grandfather on his, turns out one of grandads sisters children married into the family.
Barb

[Annie65115]

I had a very frustrating "brick wall" which took about 3 -4 years of sustained effort to knock down. In the early part of this time, Ancestry was forever giving me "hints" to an enormous tree with around 65000 names on it, and I was intrigued to see that the person whose tree it was had apparently solved the puzzle of my brick wall so I messaged them.

(I've learned since then that such enormous trees are not usually worth even opening!)

Anyway, I got the response back that this ancestor of mine was something to do with some scottish relations of the husband of the tree holder     Now I felt certain that there was NO scottish link and I pushed for further details but none was ever forthcoming.

Next thing, I had put some photos on my Ancestry tree and foolishly not made it private and this name-collector pinched my photos and put them on her tree even though she had no idea who I or my family were! Another stiff message to her, one to Ancestry and making my tree private solved that problem - the "Scottish link" was left unproven.

Having now demolished my brick wall, I know there was NO Scottish link. I think these enormous trees are made by people who blindly follow those green leafy "hints" and add things without any checks (and often without any personal link to the person involved).

If I were the OP, based on my experiences, I'd be inclined to forget about it.

[Maggsie]

I searched for a birth with the Mothers maiden name and no results.
Then I thought, I wonder when the Father was asked what is Mothers maiden name, if he put HIS Mothers maiden name........yes he did haha.
I got the birth then.
Yes trees in Ancestry, I send messages and tell them to delete my findings when they take them to their tree and they are not related. I don't mind if they do it correctly.
One took my GGGrandfather, he said it was the first result on the list, twit! He said he died in the USA, I showed him the grave in Ireland.
Maggsie

[medpat]

 :)I found most of my paternal family on a very large tree. I contacted the owner as I wasn't going to find a link on a tree that size. His answer was - His gt whatever grandfather had a brother who married but after his death his widow married my gt gt gt uncle. Both were in their 50s widowed with grown up children and no children to the 2nd marriage. The woman was only related to the owner of the tree due to her 1st marriage. No wonder he had a huge tree.

When I told him that the couple weren't related to him he agreed but said he liked to put all about their lives on his tree and that meant all their relatives as well

I agree large trees aren't worth looking at they usually belong to people who add none relatives like the idiot I contacted. :

[IgorStrav]

:)I found most of my paternal family on a very large tree. I contacted the owner as I wasn't going to find a link on a tree that size. His answer was - His gt whatever grandfather had a brother who married but after his death his widow married my gt gt gt uncle. Both were in their 50s widowed with grown up children and no children to the 2nd marriage. The woman was only related to the owner of the tree due to her 1st marriage. No wonder he had a huge tree.

When I told him that the couple weren't related to him he agreed but said he liked to put all about their lives on his tree and that meant all their relatives as well

I agree large trees aren't worth looking at they usually belong to people who add none relatives like the idiot I contacted. :

I agree that adding in swathes of ancestors to wives/husbands isn't necessarily helpful. 

However, it can help sometimes as I've found that families are linked several times by marriage, and it really shows how close knit communities could be.  You can theorise that Uncle so and so's brother-in-law's sister was present at a party and her son met your cousin there and that's why they married..... (if you follow that one!  ) 

Direct ancestors aren't always the most interesting, either....