US man jailed for stealing ID of dead baby

A US man who assumed the identity of a baby who died in Texas in 1972 has been sentenced to more than two years in federal prison after the child's aunt discovered the ruse on Ancestry.com.

Jon Vincent, 45, of Pennsylvania, was sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty in May to social security fraud and aggravated identify theft.

Prosecutors say Vincent escaped from a Texas halfway house in 1996 and stole Nathan Laskoski's identity after searching a cemetery for a similar birthdate.

Prosecutors say he also lived in Mississippi and Tennessee under his assumed name, holding jobs, getting driver's licences and even getting married and divorced.

Laskoski's aunt was doing an Ancestry.com search when she found a leaf on the family tree linking him to her dead nephew.