Child adopted, name changed by adoptive parents

[M McCaffrey]

A cousin on the other U.S. coast let me know last evening that she had uncovered her grandfather's adoption (ca. 1900) through DNA testing and research.

Apart from the fact that she's suddenly no longer my cousin in a strict technical sense …here's what I have learned: I actually did know that "John Doe" was adopted, and that this branch of the family was related to me legally, but not "by blood."
The parent who gave up John, "Sally Smith," had actually named him "Joe," not John, and of course he had a different surname.
My cousin has been busily developing a family tree for John/Joe.
I know how to duplicate John's child button so that he also appears in Sally's line. The adoption legally changed his name from "Joe Smith" to "John Doe," but I'd like some thoughts on how to handle the fact that his birth name was Joe. (My cousin uncovered the original birth certificate as part of his research, so there is support for it.)

My thought is to include his birth name in the "Alias/AKA" field, but yet another complication is that he changed the spelling of the family surname some time before he enlisted for World War I. I believe strongly in the principle of one person, one record; I wouldn't want to have a second record for the same person.

Am I on a sound track here?

Thanks all,

[A Ginn]

I have one of those relatives - someone who was adopted shortly after birth by his Aunt and Uncle and renamed. My choice for his case has been method #2 in the manual (search for "name changes") - including both sets of names and bracketing the lesser used birth names, but this method only tells the whole story if you check the preferences box for Family View - Children - Show child's last name. That preference setting also helps with cases where the children have changed the spelling of the surname.

[Bob White]

I am such a person except in my case it was my mother's next husband who adopted me. Legally, my last name has been White since age 5 and that's what I record as my name in Reunion. In the Notes section, I supply some explanation about my previous name of Barnes.

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

There's always:
First name: Joe McGillicuddy, later Archibald
Last name: Huffington