Back in the day, if a child was baptized in the Catholic Church, they were expected to be given the name of a Saint.  Many priests refused to baptize a child.  Not saying "Elsie" was Catholic, but if she was, I don't think there was a Saint Elsie.  With "Mary" you don't get much more saintly than that!   My Aunt Ruth was born in 1921.  Grandma Katherine wanted her youngest daughter baptized "Ruth Katherine," and that is how she went through life, but lo and behold, there is no Saint Ruth and her baptismal record reads "Catherine Ruth."    Ruth Katherine (guess who I'm named after!) --- On Tue, 7/20/10, Diane Miskiewicz <[email protected]> wrote: From: Diane Miskiewicz <[email protected]> Subject: [COOK-CO-IL] Cannot find birth certificate for mother To: [email protected] Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 11:53 AM I also was at a loss until the FAMILY SEARCH PILOT website came on.  Found out the mother who we always knew had the name Elsie was, at birth, named Mary by her mother and father in 1915. Showed up with me just typing in the last name. My sister and I surprised.  In fact, I said remember when mom tried to get her birth certificate from Cook County (to get a passport to go to Ireland)they couldn't find "Elsie". Goes to show if they didn't like the name Mary that they named her let's just change it to Elsie - without ever doing it legally. I guess it keeps people on their toes while doing genealogy.  Happy Hunting everyone.   Diane ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message