Rachel Dobson, Cottondale, Alabama: My great-great-grandmother Martha Jane Bryan, born about 1862 in Dale County, Alabama, changed her last name (probably when she was a young adult) to Peters. She told her children her father was Tom Peters, and his name was listed on her 1922 death certificate. The only records that exist for her early years are censuses. No records have been found that connect her to a Tom Peters. DNA has shown that her descendants are Bryans, not members of the Peters family. I don’t know why she changed her name or why she distanced herself from her biological father.

Mat Trotter, Ogden, Utah: For many years, I hit a brick wall while researching my great-grandfather Albert Wilford Merriam. Through DNA testing I connected with relatives and learned that Albert left his first wife in California and assumed a new identity by swapping his first and middle names and altering the first letters of each. Now Alferd Wilbert Merrian, he relocated to Nevada, married, and had a child with his second wife. They named the child Wilberta Merrian.

Joy Metcalf, Northport, Maine: My family had many stories about my grandfather Leroy Ferguson, including that he was born on a ship sailing from Scotland to the United States and that his father married the family’s nanny. However, I was unable to find any information on Leroy beyond his military records, which stated that he came from Pennsylvania. I began researching his mother, Elizabeth Welch, and learned that his name at birth was not Leroy Ferguson. He was born Charles L. Cook Jr. Y-DNA confirmed this discovery. For reasons unknown, he left home at 13 and changed his name.

Lynn Thye, Blacksburg, Virginia: About 1787, after serving in the Revolutionary War, my relative Richard Edgerton married 20-year-old Judith Graves in Massachusetts. Shortly after the 1788 birth of their only child, Henry Graves Edgerton, Richard deserted his family. No divorce was recorded. By 1790, Richard was using his mother’s maiden name, “Buell.” He married Mary Wilford, and they had three children. The Buell family settled in Batavia, New York. Richard’s will, proved in 1819, mentions only his second family. By 1817, Judith had settled with her son and daughter-in-law in to Barre, New York—just a few miles away from the Buells. Judith’s gravestone, in Elba, New York, is inscribed: Grandmother / Judith / Wife of Richard Edgerton / Died Oct. 3, 1836 / Aged 69 years.

Bruce Randall, Ottawa, Ontario: My great-great uncle Manford Wilson Inskeep married Ida Mae Croussore, the divorcee of an Old West outlaw named Jefferson Davis Hardin, who was himself the brother of the much more notorious outlaw John Wesley Hardin. Sick of life on the lam, Ida left Hardin when he was on the run from the law, taking their three children with her. To protect her family, Ida and her children began using the last name Davis. Even after Ida married Inskeep, her children kept the name Davis.