Edward Symansky grew up in 1920s Cleveland when children of Polish immigrants struggled with accepting their birth names.

His parents wanted their children to be proud of their Polish heritage, but Edward was the only one of his siblings to keep the family name as an adult.

He called his only son Terry, his wife's choice, and gave him the middle name Jude, for the saint she prayed to. When it came to his surname, there was not a question: Symansky.

To Terry's relatives, the name is sacred. So when authorities told the family this week that another man had stolen Terry's identity sometime after his death in 1991 and lived under his name for more than two decades, they were devastated.

"For somebody to take something like that, it's not just someone stealing your name," said Terry's sister, Cynthia Bujnak, of Rocky River, Ohio. "They're stealing a part of you."

Pasco County sheriff's deputies this week arrested Richard Hoagland, 63, originally from Indiana, on charges of fraudulent use of personal identification. Deputies said that while using Terry Symansky's name, Hoagland married a woman and moved to Zephyrhills, where they had a son together who also carries the surname.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Zephyrhills man spent two decades raising a family using a dead man's name, Pasco sheriff says

He told deputies he left Indiana and took a fake name to get away from his wife. The Indiana wife told deputies that her husband had told her years ago that he had embezzled millions of dollars, had to flee FBI agents pursuing him and never returned.

Authorities were investigating on Friday whether the FBI had a case with Hoagland as a suspect.

The Symansky family may have never found out someone was possibly masquerading as their relative if not for the Internet.

About three years ago, one of Terry Symansky's nephews was on Ancestry.com for a family project. He noticed that his uncle Terry had gotten a marriage license in 1995, four years after he died from drowning, as well as a private pilot's license from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Confused and scared, the nephew's immediate family kept the discovery a secret. But when Bujnak found out last March while visiting family, she contacted law enforcement.

After about three months of investigation, Pasco County deputies arrested Hoagland, ending his decades-long ruse.

Bujnak said she felt as if she was "in a fog" trying to understand what happened and how Hoagland lived as her brother for so long.

She knew her father operated a moving company with his wife in Florida, and also rented out a bedroom in their home. He likely rented the room to Hoagland after the man fled Indiana, deputies said.

Deputies believe that while Hoagland lived with Edward Symansky, he found and stole Terry Symansky's death certificate between 1992 and 1995. With the death certificate, investigators say, he obtained a birth certificate from Ohio, which he used in a mail-in application for an Alabama driver's license. He then used the Alabama license to obtain a Florida license, and then lived as Terry Symansky, authorities said.

"Thinking of my family, what they thought of names …" Bujnak said. "For somebody to take something like that makes me so, so mad and so, so sad."

When Hoagland fled Indiana, he left behind four children from two different marriages. His second wife filed a missing persons report in 1993 and later had Hoagland declared dead in 2003.

The Pasco Sheriff's Office and the FBI are working with agencies in Indianapolis and in Hoagland's hometown to see whether he is linked to any unsolved crimes in the early 1990s.

"We find it hard to believe he would go through all this trouble for so long just to avoid a divorce," said Pasco sheriff's Detective Anthony Cardillo.

Hoagland was still in jail Friday in lieu of $25,000 bail. His bail was increased from an initial $2,000 because detectives view him as a flight risk.

His current wife, who lived with him in Zephyrhills for two decades, said she was not going to bail him out, Cardillo said.

"She does not know of anyone else who would assist him," he added.

The notion that Hoagland's Florida wife and son carry her father's family name troubled Bujnak.

"She is not a Symansky, her son is not a Symansky," Bujnak said. "They're not my family. That family can't have that name."

Contact Hannah Alani at halani@tampabay.com or (813) 909-4617. Follow @hannahalani.