My great-great-grandfather
Reuben Church was an Otoe farmer in the 1800s - the family and property are described in "Portrait and Biographical album of Otoe..." pages 744 on. In that text, and in Federal census records, my great-grandfather is recorded as his son
Reuben, born 1859.
"Portrait" is the last record of him going by that name. I can find no record of him anywhere from 1889, but by 1910 he was living in IL as Edward Joseph Church, and telling the Census takers he was ten years younger than he was. I think the latter bit might have just been a fib to cover for marrying a substantially younger woman, but I wonder if there might be a bigger picture to the whole business.
I don't get the impression my g-grandfather was necessarily trying to hide his origins - his death records correctly identify his parents, birthplace and birth year, all matching with the earlier accounts of
Reuben Jr. Is there anyone out there familiar enough with Otoe history to know what happened within my family leading to my ggrandfather leaving and changing his name?