You might add that birth certificates are just as fallible. Mine was wrong, and was published in the newspaper that way! HOWEVER: They are still the best evidence we can get. Word of mouth is just that, and the later after the event, the story is told, the more errors creep in. Hospital records are fairly good. They are, after all, primary evidence. Censuses can be very wrong. So can tombstones. Weigh all of the evidence you can gather for a certain statistic or fact on someone, but the greater weight of the evidence should win out. How much do you have to back up the death cert.? Funeral home records? Write-up in the newspaper with the date of the paper on the page with it? Family Bible? Family papers written by some old gal like me? (Memory still good?) Then put them all together. Draw conclusions from all the facts, not just one or two. One of my favorite illustrations is the newspaper write-up of Sen. James Johnston, Jr.'s death. I finally found the date of the newspaper which should have covered this story; since he died as a fairly young man, and this was his home area. It was in the Univ. of Georgia Library. Had to order it. When I finally found the issue and the front page, a nice, neat clipping had been done of the feature story about someone's funeral. I mean, they didn't leave even a word of it. (This is known as the "back to the drawing board" or the "back to the salt mines." phase.) It is a revolting turn of events. So, as Miss Virginia Livingston, a famous genealogist one said, "Therre being no evidence to the contrary..." If you publish this sort of comment, you will surely have a hot letter or E-Mail from someone. Beverly Shuler