Hi, Missing LIncs,     This question came up on another mailing list, but why would you change your name?     No, not YOU, but one of your ancestors.  I have some personal experience with this.  I was born with the name you all know me by, but my mother registered me under her new married name when it came time for school.  Fewer questions, I guess, when it came time to meet the teacher.  But when I turned 18 I faced three issues that would affect me for the rest of my life: 1.  I was going to college to get a degree.  Should it be in my birth name or my school name. 2.  Potential military service. 3.  Potential Citizenship in my new country.     Mind, you, my birth record didn't match my school records, and I needed the birth record for #2 and #3.  Now, in America, like in England, you can go by any name you want as long as you are not engaged in any fraud or felonious act.  I elected to return to my birth name, and I'm not sorry.     But I can understand why one of my ancestors might pick a different name.  Particularly if they had a criminal past, or had abandoned a family, or fled a large debt.  Or if they had a father they disliked.  Some men used an older brother's name to enlist if they were under age, and the new name "stuck".  My wife has an ancestor who won a ticket to America in a card game and he adopted the name written on the ticket and never reverted back.     So, tell, do have a relative who changed his name?  Why?         Lou