I have a bunch of people changing from Huckbody to Freeman. In the late 1830s Nathan Huckbody and his brother David were transported to Australia for stealing sheep. Nathan's wife, (Sarah (Mallowby) Huckbody had several more children, all of whom were called Huckbody. The oldest deserted from the British Navy in the United States and returned to the UK under the name Freeman and took his mother and most of his younger siblings and half siblings including my ancestor Richard to the US under the Freeman name. Freeman made as much sense as Huckbody, since they were not Nathan's children. Although the family story was that he claimed "I changed my name to Freeman because now I was in America I was a free man." At 04:15 PM 3/16/2014, you wrote: >Hi, Missing LIncs, > > This question came up on another mailing list, but why would > you change your name?