Hi Janice First of all, to make it interesting, in Pennsylvania you may call yourself anything you want as long as its not done to defraud someone. (I.e., changing your name to fool a creditor or something.) So you don't need to "change your name legally" to legally change your name in Pennsylvania. As someone on the list can attest, if that wasn't the case, her father would have had to get a lawyer or go through life as Baby Boy Thorpe on all of his documents. <g> Otoh, having mismatched documents obviously worked better in an age that wasn't as paper conscious as we are. Two of my grandparents had "wrong" names on their birth certificates when I got them, and even my 12 year old had a problem on her birth certificate when I had a copy made a few years back. If you you contact the Pennsylvania Department of Health, they can send you a correction form that you fill out with your mother's correct name and they will update their records and issue you a corrected certificate. (I assume you have to pay whatever the fee is now for the new certificate.) I fixed my daughter's certificate, but no, I didn't "correct" my grandparents' when the clerk asked me if I wanted to. I figure that if they went through life just fine with the name "wrong," I wasn't going to mess with it retroactively after their deaths. Alaine ~~~~~ www.nepagenealogy.com www.lackawannacounty.info > As the story goes, my mother was born at home in Dunmore, Lackawanna County, PA in the early 1900s to a very Irish family. Her mother wanted her named Marie Anne. Her mother (Helen) was very ill from the delivery so her mother's sister registered the birth. Since my grandmother went against Irish naming convention, my aunt took it upon herself to register the name "properly," thus, my mother's birth name is Mary Helen. On her marriage certificate from Lackawanna County it is tweaked to Marie Helen. Her church records also show Mary Helen, except marriage of Marie Helen. All her adult life has been spent as Marie Anne including taxes, drivers license, social security, etc. My mother is over 85 and living in a nursing home. I've been pursuing various programs to help pay some of the costs. They are requiring birth and marriage certificates, etc. when I complete applications. Obviously the name difference is causing problems. In talking w/ Lackawanna County they ad! vi! > se that I must legally change her name to correct the forms. This entails hiring attorney, trips to PA, etc. Has anyone else run into this and how did you handle it? >