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Archiver > TMG > 2000-05 > 0957302519


From: Richard Brogger <>
Subject: [TMG-L:] Re: TMG-L: proof
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 16:21:59 -0500
References: <017401bfb457$08089d80$8c032526@0016374473>


Hi Arlene,

My birthday was celebrated on the twenty-first of September until I
started high school and a birth certificate had to be shown. It was
then that my mother realized that she had misremembered the date. I was
born on the twentieth.

You may think she was a dummy. She completed high school in three years
but still out scored those who took four years and graduated at the top
of her class. She went to the University of Minnesota, graduated and
passed her state exams to become a Registered Pharmacist all within
three years. Hardly a dummy but she did misremember the date of an event
she witnessed.

An in-law's birth certificate gave her father's birth location, which I
entered. When he died, his birth location on the death certificate was
different, so I entered that. When I got a copy of his birth
certificate, it showed a third location, so I entered that. I can
provide official documents that show the man was born in three
locations. To make a long story short, his birth certificate was in
error. The Doctor had entered his town as the location instead of the
township where the farmhouse was located which was the true location.
When the man died, his wife gave the name of the closest town to the
farm. When the daughter was born, her father gave the correct location
so the first data entered was the correct one. The other two locations
still remain along with an explanation and I have a copy of a notarized
letter that he and his mother had signed and filed with the courthouse
to correct his birth certificate.

Are official documents more correct than personal knowledge? Maybe.
Can a person's personal knowledge be incorrect? Maybe.

I do not usually obtain documents for in-laws relatives. In fact, I
don't always get them for close relatives unless I get conflicting
data. If cousin Henry says that his wife's Grand Aunt was born on such
and such a date, that is good enough for me. I list him as the source
and let it go at that, unless . . . Most of my data is undocumented but
every scrap has a source. If someone does not believe my source, they
are free to get any and all the proof they want.

Let's be honest. The "facts" on official documents are provided by
humans. Humans can make mistakes, humans can lie. Short of DNA tests
can anyone prove who the parents are. Mother's have lied about who the
father was, babies have been switched in hospitals. In the past a
child's natural parents might die and the child be taken in by relatives
who listed the child as theirs and no official record was ever made.

In December, 1918, the brother and sister-in-law of the wife of a Grand
Uncle died of flu within a twenty four period. Their five day old
daughter was taken in by my Grand Uncle and his wife. The details were
never hidden from the child or from anyone else but she was never
adopted or made theirs in any official manner. They raised her and sent
her through nurses training. I show that she has two sets of parents
but there is no official record and I could not document the facts
except that she was born and that her natural parents died. She has had
to build her own "proof" with sworn affidavits of witnesses. The
witnesses could only attest to what they remembered of events that
happened long before. I take family "lore" as fact because it is as
good as it gets.

Richard

arlene wrote:
>
> Just another point -- I am absolutely positive that parents (especially the
> mother) knows exactly when/where/how their child/children were born.
> I sure do!!
>
> 'nuff said <g>
>
> Arlene
>
> -
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