Carole,

I have found several instances in the 1800s where a child who was born out 
of wedlock was given the mother's last name (her maiden name or her married 
name, if the mother was married to someone other than the father of the 
child), versus the last name of the biological father.  It seems that this 
practice continues in many cases today.  I have also found instances where 
the child's parents were married to one another....but where the child was 
then orphaned....and the family who took-in that orphaned child 
named/renamed the child such that the last name matched their own last name.

This last scenario was apparently what happened with my maternal 
gg-grandfather (born about 1817).  DNA testing on one of his living male 
descendants proves that he was a "biological Smith" (and I have now "traced" 
his "Smith line" back to the 1650s in Lancaster Co., VA), yet his name was 
Smith W. Brown (he was taken-in, named and reared by John and Mary (Bennett) 
Brown).  In cases like this where the child was "adopted" (even though there 
were no official court-approved adoptions in the early-1800s, as I 
understand it), it was apparently fairly common to use the "biological last 
name" as the given first or middle name of the child....in honor of the 
child's "biological family."  A change to the given name was probably done 
only in cases where the child in question was still an infant/toddler. 
Note: No proof, but I doubt that this was the common practice in cases where 
the child was the result of an "affair," since using the "biological last 
name" as a "given name" in those cases would be like "announcing the 
affair."

DNA testing for "genealogy purposes" has become quite popular, and it has 
proven that "non-paternity events" like "adoptions" and "affairs" were more 
common in America in the 1600s-1800s than some people care to admit (and 
some people simply changed their last names in the 1600s-1800s, in an 
attempt to escape legal issues).  I am a volunteer for the 
Davidson/Davison/Davisson DNA testing project website, and I would guess 
that about 10% of the men with that surname who have taken the test have a 
"DNA match" only to people who have some OTHER surname (and the "true 
number" may be higher than that, since we also have a significant number of 
men whose DNA is not a close "match" to ANY other DNA donor at this time, 
irrespective of the surname).

Bill 

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