What advice can you give on finding out if Charles Dunn (1865-1942) changed his name to Frank L Smith

Question

My name is Douglas Smith, the great grandson of Frank Leroy Smith (1865-1942) and grandson of Dewey Smith (1903-1978), both paternal ancestors. There are and have always been for many years before I was born (1966) many stories about how my great grandfather Frank L. Smith was actually Charles Dunn, a straight line male descendant of John and Amy Burks Dunn, Charles and Mary E. Shrader Dunn, and John and Elizabeth J. Howard Dunn. For reasons unknown he supposedly changed his name, moving from Wisconsin to Texas, then settling for the rest of his life with his wife, Pattie Elder Koger Smith, in a tiny south central New Mexico village called Tularosa. My Aunt Julia Charlene Smith Lloyd (1936-2022) remembered him well and has documented (anecdotally) many stories about him as well as a few of his brothers and sister who would visit him in Tularosa. All of her stories with dates, places, and people fit in exactly with the people that were in the life of Charles Dunn (1865-1942). This said, and I'm very sorry for being long winded, I really need to know the best DNA sample test for Y chromosome testing, and the best way to utilize the results to confirm just exactly who Frank L. Smith is. I have started at the top of the Dunn line as far as I can go back and have gathered the name of every male Dunn descendant who would inherit a Y chromosome from John Dunn(1754-1837) and there are quite a few plus maybe some missing. I have found these on Family Search, and yes, I know this tree is user generated with sources sometimes questionable. What is the best way to use this information? Thanks for reading.

Comments

sounds like you need to also add the tag DNA, since that is more applicable to your real question.  I don't know how to add tags to your post.

There is also a legal record approach, but back that far people might not have always gone thru courts for a name change, especially if there were some reason they wanted a disconnect.  Do you have a sense of what state he was living in when he changed his name?

Answer 1

There might be another way, since you are referring to your great-grandfather as the one with the name change. You can also approach this problem "bottom-up".

In addition to the various YDNA tests, you could also take an AncestryDNA test because it has the most people who also take this test. Then look for people who have a DNA match with you and see which cousins turn up that are unknown to you (assuming your existing family tree is well known to you). Then reach out to these matches and see where the family trees intersect and if you run into any Dunn family members, or people descended from Dunn. If that turns out to be true, then you can work your way back up the family tree.

I would also suggest seeing if there is someone who is working on a Dunn family DNA project that you can connect with.

There are going to be different ways to approach this problem.

Comments

I am one of the administrators of the Dunn DNA project at familytreedna.com. A ydna test of your oldest living smith in the line can see if you match one of the 20 plus Dunn families already members. You can upload the results to WIKITREE and other genealogy sites.This can open a lot of doors.