The old man's recipe calls for beef pork and chicken.
One of my greatuncles (now deceased) used a recipe that included amongst other things, pig brains. It wasn't bad, but I far prefer the work my dad does. He goes through a lot of trouble to get all of the fat out of the meats, takes him about 2 days to complete a batch. He uses corn, tomatoes, onions and some beans in his.
Eventually, I'll be honored to participate in a batch, but I have to take a bloody oath first. He takes his recipes seriously and he only started working on brunswick stew in earnest after said greatuncle died and he wouldn't be stepping on any toes at the family reunions by making it. Point being, he didn't ever make it when I lived in my parents house, he only started after I moved out so I don't know all of the tricks. He doesn't write stuff like that down and asking him outright only gets you a bunch of vague generalities.
I duplicated his beef jerky marinade with trial and error, but it was pretty simple. I'm gonna have to apprentice my way into decent brunswick stew.