"One I haven't heard back from, one (who I thought really, really was) emailed me back and said, nope, she never had the last name I knew her as. Part of me thinks it really is her, maybe she just doesn't want to be known by that name, but I thanked her for emailing me back and told her I won't bother her again." - Irishenglish

Most likely she told you the truth. If anyone looked for me by my maiden name, they'd find several women about my age, from the same general area, with similar employment and arts histories. The name is not terribly common anywhere else, but it is in my birth area, and most of the results would not be women closely related to me, either.

If she is a woman over fifty, you run into the fact that when she entered the workforce, most women were confined to a limited choice of profession, so many will have similar employment histories. And most will have changed their surname on marriage, and may have kept it if divorced, or remarried and changed surnames again.

Women are harder to find than men, particularly those of us past middle age. We are usually more careful in maintaining anonymity online, as well.

There are always ongoing arguments among bloggers and particularly professionals who have influential blogs about the practice of anonymity. Male bloggers more often argue on the side of using your real name because it is more honest and establishes that you are willing to stand behind your opinions. Female bloggers are more likely to argue on the side of anonymity for reasons of avoiding harassment, and there are plenty of horror stories floating around of women who did use their real names, or were tracked down, being harassed to the point of discontinuing their blogs - and there are a much smaller number of men who have had the same experience, usually men with children.