Mysterious Howard Masten Youngblood of Montgomery, NY

Howard’s Civil War Registration record lists his birth date as Dec 19, 1846 and his parents as Thomas Youngblood and Hannah Masten as shown below:

In going back to the 1850 Montgomery census I found no Howard Youngblood.  However, I seemed to have a match on a 3 year old listed as Howard E. MACKILHONE with mother Hannah in the household of her parents John and Eve Youngblood (no marital status was included in that census – might she have been a widow?).
 

In 1860 Hannah was the wife of Jonathan Masten, with Howard age 14 then listed as Masten plus 2 of Hannah’s brothers. In 1870, Hannah is the head of household (again, no marital status collected) and her son Howard is now married with 2 children of his own, and he is listed as YOUNGBLOOD !  In 1880 he is listed as Howard E. Youngblood and still has his mother living with them.

Looking back at the CW registration record, Howard’s father is listed simply as Thomas without any surname. His mother is listed as Hannah Masten. In other such records I have found this to be a possible source of a mother's maiden name -- but not this one. At least parents were listed which is not always the case.

I am wondering if Hannah first married perhaps a Thomas McElhone (that seems to be a likely spelling in that region) who may have died prior to the 1850 census. Then she married Jonathan Masten prior to the 1860 census and he seemingly died before 1870.  Is it feasible that Howard started his life as McElhone, adopted his step-father’s name and later reverted to his mother’s maiden name?

More work to be done here. If you know his tale, please share it. Thanks.