Who’s on First? And is She the Same as Who’s on Second?

From Abbott and Costello’s iconic comedy sketch, Who’s on First, to Mark Twain’s Prince and the Pauper, there are examples of theater and literature tackling questions of identity and mistaken identity and the (mis)understanding that follows. In the realm of more recent, historical non-fiction, however, those seeking to invalidate the ballot cast by Georgia voter Deborah Jean Christiansen last week because she was reportedly dead had to backtrack publicly when she was found by a news crew alive and well in a county adjacent to her deceased namesake, with whom she reportedly shares a month and year of birth, according to CNN. 

This case of mistaken identity which was reported across a number of news outlets including the Daily Beast, got me thinking about so much of what we do at 221B Partners: conducting investigations and research into people, many of whom, like Christiansen, have dopplgängers. For example, we might be tasked with a background investigation of John Smith who is a potential board candidate at a publicly-traded company. Or, maybe we are conducting an asset search into the name of Ann Miller, who is implicated in a million-dollar fraud investigation. We could be combing through records and information about Mike Jones, who is posing a threat to our client or even Michelle Johnson who we are vetting as an expert witness.

Research into the Smiths, Millers, Joneses and Johnsons of this world is something we do all the time. Even what you might think of as considerably less common names and surnames often count in their namesakes in the hundreds across the U.S. It can be challenging to get it right, but it’s part of daily work. And, as such, we simply cannot get it wrong, as happened with Christiansen.

How about a real-life, (name changed) example of research subject Charles Smith? Shortly into our work we discover that his name is, in fact, Francis Charles Smith, though professionally he is known as Charles. Now, imagine this same Charles Smith is an attorney, was general counsel at a publicly traded company, and in the past two decades has lived or worked in a half-dozen major metropolitan areas. Oh, and, because some days all the cards fall this way, he is Francis Charles Smith, II, or a junior! This intersection of factors and characteristics requires a human eye experienced in cross-referencing what we call data points. There is no magic button or computer-generated report that will aggregate all the possible salient information, adverse or otherwise, out there on the Francis Charles Smith, whom our client is considering naming to the board of a nonprofit.

For this exercise, we would use a variety of free and subscription databases as a jumping off point to help us direct our investigation. We’d search various county, state and federal court and public records portals for information naming our subject and weed out those that aren’t him based on other identifiers or reported information. We’d spend time ruling in or out what are sure to be hundreds of potential bankruptcies, tax liens and judgments naming Francis Smith or Charles Smith. Through a combination of search techniques learned over the years we would try to identify civil litigation that definitively names him and not just a namesake and then analyze those filings for information that will be important to our client and their decision-making process. That means ordering and reading court filings to do so. Contrary perhaps to popular belief, many jurisdictions do not offer online, one-stop shopping. We still often send researchers to courthouses to search and retrieve records. Press, media and social media searches for the subject are even more cumbersome and painstaking.That’s just the tip of the iceberg on what we face with common names. 

All research requires keen attention to detail but those projects we undertake with common names are even more demanding on a keen eye. Lately, our work as investigators has required us to navigate government agencies, courthouses and recorder’s offices working under reduced capacity or being closed to the public as a result of public health measures to combat coronavirus. We, and our clients, rely on the information we get from these records repositories across the U.S. You can read more about how we have overcome this hurdle by making effective use of our favorite research tool – the telephone – in 221B’s [dia]blog found here.