How and where do i begin doing family research when the surname may have benn ch

Question:

How and where do i begin doing family research when the surname may have benn changed?

i have been working on my family tree for a couple of years and have hit a brick wall. my grandfather may have changed his last name in the early 1900's illegally. his was born in 1887, in georgia, and at that time their were not birth certificates. i have searched both surnames and can't find my great grandparents in any census reports. the earliest i can find my grandfather in a census is in 1920. i do have his application for social security, draft registration card from WWI and his death certificate, but he only list his parent's first names on these documents. so where do i go from here?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I doubt the name was changed, thinking it's more likely misspelled or misheard or mis-transcribed on a census index.

Some census sources are literal and you have to do all the guessing. Ancestry.com's allows wild cards, soundex, &c. You could also try looking for given names if you know about where to look. There are all kinds of tricks! If I knew what name you needed looked up, birth year ranges, where born/from, I could get lucky.