Google Myself? Sure, why not?!

Posted on February 24, 2014

When I was in college applying for jobs, I often googled myself to see what information potential employers could pick up about me. I know what would show up for Whitney Agan (my maiden name). This was the first time I have actually googled my married name. Although a few posts seemed like they were coming out of the blue, the majority of them seemed on point.

The top search results included the following (in order):
• My LinkedIn Account
• My Pinterest Account
• Spokeo (out of 15 Whitney Amerson results, I wasn’t mentioned)
• Death Record for Whitney Amerson (obviously not me)
• My Facebook Account
• SEO Blog Post (for this class!)
• My Grandfather’s Obituary
• Wedding Registry (when I was still Whitney Agan)

The majority of images on the Google image search came from my Pinterest account, my wedding photographer’s blog, and this blog. My dog even showed up as one of the images! I wasn’t surprised to find my social media accounts on there. I didn’t see my Twitter page in the search results though. One search result was Spokeo. I had never heard of this website before; it appears to be a name database. On the page, it found 15 Whitney Amersons around the country. The vast majority of them being in Florida, which just happens to be where all of my husband’s family lives. I, however, was not listed as one of them.

My grandfather’s obituary also showed up in the search results. That was actually the first time that my name was ever written as Whitney Amerson, being that he passed away two weeks after I got married. It was sad to see. The photo from his obituary also showed up as one of the images.

I didn’t find anything crazy. When I was Whitney Agan, there was apparently another Whitney Agan who was in and out of jail for selling drugs fairly regularly. That was pretty exciting, being that we were around the same age. The only mentions of Whitney Amerson other than the various name bank results was a death certificate for a Whitney Amerson. Obviously, not me!

My name isn’t very common. In some ways, I’m really glad about that. In other ways, not so much. If Whitney Amerson makes the news, it’s more than likely me. That could be good or bad! I’m going to keep searching for my name every now and then. You never know when something crazy might pop up!