On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:59:54 +0000 Sandra J Smith <[email protected]> wrote: Hello Sandra, > Yes, I have to agree that even "legal" documents are sometimes > misleading, but generally the lies are told on the marriage Of which, I have a good example; I simply could not find the birth cert of one of my forebears (Mercy Harlow). According to her marriage certificate, her father was George Harlow. Only two birth registrations were in the correct time frame, and even one of those was "off" by five years. I ordered both, and neither appeared to be the correct certificate. Nothing else in the GRO indexes fitted so, brick wall. I traced the girl through census returns, to see if I could get a better fix on her. No dice. Age fluctuated, as did the names and ages of siblings. Name of father appeared to change, too. Warning bells rang. It took a lot of tracking through various census returns, and a fairly large number of certificates, but it turns out that Mercy's father was Henry Harlow, not George. Henry died when Mercy was quite young, and her mother married another Harlow (George). Birth certificates of her siblings enabled me to pinpoint the death of Henry, and mother's marriage to George. Even her older sister was only four when their father died so it is entirely possible, of course, that Mercy believed her father was George. Alternatively, she could have wanted to avoid (perceived) complications and stated that her step-father was her birth father. I'll probably never know. Which reminds me; I must order a copy of Mercy's older sister's marriage certificate to see who she said her father was. -- Regards _ / ) "The blindingly obvious is / _)rad never immediately apparent" Buy some love at the five and dime You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart - Eurythmics