My 5x great grandfather was a MacGregor (the Mafia of Scotland) who left Scotland one jump ahead of the law and changed his name when he got here (or before he left - at one point in Scotland they tried to fix the problem by outlawing the name MacGregor -- kind of like the Atlanta city fathers trying to solve the crime problem on Stewart Avenue by renaming it Metropolitan Parkway).
And one of my Civil War ancestors was accused of stealing a horse -- although he denied it and nothing ever came of it. He said he found it loose on the battlefield, and he probably did. Another of my Civil War ancestors actually DID steal horses -- in one of his letters he remarked to his wife, "I didn't let the captain see the horse this time." Although maybe he figured he had just as much right to it as the captain . . . .
I’m from the same clan. Our new name was Gregg when we got here.