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Archiver > TMG > 2000-05 > 0957310943


From: "arlene" <>
Subject: [TMG-L:] Re: TMG-L: proof
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 19:42:23 -0400
References: <017401bfb457$08089d80$8c032526@0016374473> <390F46F7.290CD239@infoave.net>


Okay = I guess our family was "different" - we were all born at the same
hospital in the same county in the same city -- Brooklyn, NY
Arlene
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Brogger" <>
To: <>
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 5:21 PM
Subject: Re: TMG-L: proof


> 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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