Many birth & death certificates lack full names and many times clarification. Bill K. These death certificates are only as good as the knowledge or memory of the informant. Which sometimes even if its a son they don't know or didn't remember their grandparents names. Case in point. I received death certificates for John's (my hubby's) Knight & Jenkins gr-grandparents. The informant on both was their son Walter but he gave the wrong name of his mothers father and didn't know her mothers name at all. And the birth dates on both certificates are different than what I had previously had. Mary K.