A lot of family member's have told me that my great grandfather changed his name to Freeman. When questioned to ask what his name use to be my response is either he was just French or La something. What I want to know how could I find out what his name use to be?

[From Forebears Research] - If you can go back into a couple of records prior to the name change that is alleged and see if by association you can deduce who he might have been - almost by filtering out each of the neighbours and accounting for each body so to speak then the odd one out, if it's the same person repeatedly, and especially if that name "disappears" when "Freeman" appears, is your man.