So what's my real name??

[Gary M]

My late mothers birthday was Dec. 31, 1919, but her birth certificate listed Jan. 3,1920 as her bithday. She had to use the Jan. 3 date as her official birth date, but celebrated her birthday on Dec. 31. She was born at home and the doctor turned the birth certificate in several day after her birth and he screwed up the date. Ol' Doc Arford hit the sauce a little heavy and probably wasn't with it.

 

[shortbun]

My Dad did search for his to get a passport and instead of Al Richard, his name on his birth certificate was James Richard. Both his parents were passed so he never got an explanation. When he was 'bad', we called him 'Jimmy.' lol!

 

[phorsenuf]

I want to first let everyone know that I'm really not upset. I thought it was funny and the post was in jest about "who am I really."

I'm sure it was a simple mistake, but it's fun to find these things. It's one of the neat things about doing genealogy.

The birth certificate I have is an official copy with the raised seal and all. When I mentioned sending for the official copy I meant for the second one, just to see if it states corrected or what. Might just be a neat little thing to have.
I found the records through Ancestry.com under the California birth records.

As for the census, yeah those can be screwy. They had one relative listed as a daughter, um no, he was a boy. As for my grandmother I'm thinking she may have changed from Goldie to Geraldine because of her heritage and what was starting to happen in the world.

I haven't come across any skeletons yet. But nobody can find any information on my great great grandfathers death, in fact nobody can find a death record or where he was buried. He's a huge mystery.

 

[laurafergie]

This is the second time I've had some head scratchers with the first names. My grandmothers first name was Geraldine. Well, not according to the 1920 census. Apparently her real name was Goldie.

I know I'm still me. Just interesting is all. Maybe I'll switch it up a little and start going by Katerina.

Just wanted to jump in here regarding the info on the census.

I am a big genealogy buff, and the first rule to remember about the old census info is that information was written by a person, and sometimes the person they were recording was not even present. So they just recorded whatever they were told, sometimes by a neighbor! Also, there is no guarantee that the census recorder could even spell.....Always use a secondary source to back up your census info.

 

[SC Minnie]

My grandmother's name was Grace with no middle name. When she was going to apply for Soc Sec she found her birth records state that her name was actually Kathleen Grace. She never knew until she was in her early 60's. We kind of teased her that we had no idea who she really was.

 

[EthansMom]

When I gave birth to DS8 in Maryland, his birth certificate arrived in the mail a few weeks later. Included in the envelope was a notice that said that you could change the baby's name for up to one year free of charge. So, say, you get your baby home and then realize that the name just isn't going to work out.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened to you, OP.

 

[DisneyMom81]

Thats so funny! My uncle always thought his name was Bruce untill he entered the force. Then he found out it was really Robert!!!! His mom is a little nuts!

 

[Laura]

Bet you ten bucks your parents told the person your name is "Cathy" and they just heard "Katherine". At work I see a lot of birth certificate corrections. Your kind of situation would not be unusual.

 

[PatsMom]

My Dad had a missing middle name. When they did his birth certificate the paperwork said Armand J. - it was actually supposed to be Armand Joseph. My grandparents never had it fixed. My grandmother was American Indian and she didn't really believe that the government's paperwork should be necessary. She was also a very staunch Catholic and believed that if his baptismal certificate was correct that was all that mattered.

Whenever web sites ask for a security question, I tend to pick my father's middle name since no one outside of the family would know that he actually had one.

I do know someone who changed their child's birth certificate. Only she changed the last name. Before the year was up she had proven paternity and they agreed the baby should have his father's last name as part of the custody/support agreement.

 

[RadioNate]

One has to be prepared for many skeletons when doing geneology.



Census takers write down what they are told . . . it isn't uncommon to find different names for the same person when tracking them from one census to another. While probably not the cause of Geraldine - Goldie, there are also a lot of messed up transcriptions in the census site. Go for her birth certificate to solve the dilemma.

As for your name, you used the term birth "record." Was it a geneology site or an on-line official state site that had birth "certificate" copies?

When doing ours I found a lot of discrepancy in the census record names. I think for us a lot depended on what language the census was taken in and what they were calling certain areas of Europe at the time. The 'birthplace' on my great-grandmother changes every 10 years.

My big mystery is a 'sibling' of my grandfather that shows up and disappears in the census records. He is like 15 during the 1910 census, absent during the 1920 and then the name shows up again in the 1930 saying with the age listed as 24. We have no clue who this person is. I think random cousins or something immigrating were listed as kids or something.

Our big skeleton was that my grandfather was married to someone else before he married my grandmother. I guess my dad knew but didn't have any details. Only that the woman was Irish. Not sure how/why that came out but ok. I guess the subject was forbidden. We don't know if their were other children, etc.

 

[bookgirl]

When my mom was born, her name was spelt with 2 L's. About a year or so later after her parents annulment and having been living with her aunt and uncle she was adopted by them. They always used her name with 1 L.

However years ago my mom remembered looking at her birth certificate (the amended one that was reissued after her adoption) and her name having 2 L's. I was getting a new SS card and she said that her SS card was under the revised spelling and did not match her BC. She was told that this could actually mess up her social security later on.

So a few years ago we went about getting it changed. It wasn't hard she just had to go in with three items that showed that she had been using the second spelling consistantly for the majority of her life (I think we used her drivers licence, her SS card and a document from her bank/work deposit). The reissued her birth certificate that day with a corrected spelling.

As an aside, my middle name is french and has a accent on the next to last e. Vital statistics thought it was a smudge and left it off. My mom never could get them to go back and put in the accent, they told her it wasn't france. LOL I have two dipolmas with an accent and one without, every thing else does not have it since my BC, DL and SScard don't and I never wanted to get into that mess. I tend to sign everything with my first name, middle initial, and last name. But when I write my whole name I put the accent.

 

[phorsenuf]

Doing the genealogy is fun. I haven't found any skeletons as of yet though. The only "questionable" thing is when my great grandmother remarried supposedly the 2nd husband brought a daughter into the marriage. Haven't found anything to support that yet though. He was almost 25 yeas older than she was.
Plus I'm starting to think my great grandfather ran off. I can't find a blessed thing about his death and nobody knows anything about it. I keep finding someone in California that matches everything to a T. This was back in 1918 and a very staunch catholic family so maybe the stigma was too much.

 

[Green Tea]

C Lastname would come alphabetically before K Lastname in the filing, so check the numbers on the birth records. I would say you are whichever is the higher (filed latest) numbered birth record.

 

[Va-bear]

...so do I REALLY exist???

On my 'official' hospital birth certificate (the nice fancy one they used to give you...) the doctor never signed it!! There is a big blank line where he was supposed to sign!!

This worried me for years when I was a kid.... (When I was in high school and needed it to get a work permit I had to go to City Hall and get a new one - the one on file there was signed - whew!!

Good luck Cathy/Katherine/whoever you are!

 

[phorsenuf]

...so do I REALLY exist???

On my 'official' hospital birth certificate (the nice fancy one they used to give you...) the doctor never signed it!! There is a big blank line where he was supposed to sign!!

This worried me for years when I was a kid.... (When I was in high school and needed it to get a work permit I had to go to City Hall and get a new one - the one on file there was signed - whew!!

Good luck Cathy/Katherine/whoever you are!

I decided to go with Caterina.

I can't imagine the Dr not signing it. Good thing that was finally corrected. I wonder what would have happened if it never was.

 

[SNylund]

Have you seen that movie Eraser with Arnold Swarzenegger? You better check to make sure you haven't been cloned. Just kidding!

 

[jenlynn0808]

My niece actually has 2 birth certificates. SIL & BIL spelled it one way on the certificate, after a week or two the decided they liked it spelled a different way better, so had a new bc issued.

To their defense though, DNiece was born ten weeks early so they hadn't worked all the name kinks out when she decided to arrive and none of us wanted her in the NICU nameless.

 

[Disney1fan2002]

My mother spelled her name Ann her entire life. When she turned 60, I took her to get a copy of her birth certificate. Imagine her suprise when she noticed her mother had named her Anne.

She couldn't believe she never knew her name had an E in it. I am sure she needed her BC when she got married, I guess she didn't notice it then.

 

[Disney1fan2002]

My niece actually has 2 birth certificates. SIL & BIL spelled it one way on the certificate, after a week or two the decided they liked it spelled a different way better, so had a new bc issued.

Does this mean my DS has two? I was not married to Dh when he was born. I had no idea if he planned on marrying me. If I was going to be a single mother, I was not going to have a different last name than my son. So, at birth, I gave him my surname. 18 months later, DH and I got married, so I changed the baby's name on his bc, and ss card. I didn't realize they kept both on file. I just assumed they detroyed the first one after the second one was issued and logged.

 

[freckles and boo]

I haven't come across any skeletons yet. But nobody can find any information on my great great grandfathers death, in fact nobody can find a death record or where he was buried. He's a huge mystery.

That reminds me of another incident. My husband's great great aunt's husband ran off and left her with a house full of kids. The family was very worried about the stigma so they told everyone he died and they had a funeral for him. This was back in the twenties or thirties. There was an empty coffin, a grave, and a head stone. I have no idea if they managed to get him a death certificate, but there was probably enough clout in the family to get one issued.