This is an interesting one. Family rumour had it that my great Uncle Percy changed his name to Taylor & went to the US during the First World War to avoid getting called up. However since then I have discovered that in fact he used his mother's maiden name and I have a photo of him in army uniform, so I knew that couldn't be right. Turns out he was in fact born before his mother married so he was using her maiden name as that's the one he was born with! A family white lie to cover up his illegitimacy perhaps?
