Woman using Ancestry.com Discovers Man Assumed Dead Baby’s Identity for Decades

LANSDALE, Penn. (CBS NEWS) -- The feds say a Pennsylvania man has been using a dead boy’s identity for more than 21 years, CBS Philly reports. 

Authorities got involved after a relative of the deceased used Ancestry.com to put her family tree together.

A woman was getting information on Ancestry last year and her nephew Nathan Laskoski popped up. She saw that he got married and he moved around the country -- from Texas to Mississippi to Tennessee and eventually to Pennsylvania. 

But the problem is Laskoski died in 1972 when he was two months old. 

Authorities say 44-year-old Jon Vincent escaped back in 1996 from a halfway house in Texas, and went to a cemetery to find someone born around the same time that he was. 

Prosecutors say he picked Laskoski and found his birth certificate, which he used to get a social security number. 

Authorities say that started 20-plus years of jobs, bank accounts, loans, marriage and divorce as Nathan Laskoski. 

Vincent faces identity theft and social security fraud charges. If convicted he’s looking at fines of up to half a million dollars and jail time.