Caroline: You aren't making the mistake of thinking that the tombstone date is correct just because it is chiseled in stone are you? Most of us have seen examples of tombstone errors. It sounds like your grandfather lived his life as Wade Hampton. Why even try to change that now? You might look around for school records, church records, police records, newspaper accounts, etc. Maybe Willie Wade will show up, but if not relegate Willie to a footnote. On the other hand it might be very interesting to learn what Grandpa was hiding! Myron E. Williams Crossville, TN Caroline McCall wrote: >Hi... > >Seems like everyone has at least one situation where documents don't agree. I've had to have two death certificates corrected in the past three years, both being errors made by the funeral homes involved. (One listed my grandmother as someone I never heard of; the other listed the wrong city and state for my father's birthplace.) Fortunately, I caught them both before the documents were recorded so I didn't have to go through the usual process of correcting. > >I do have a situation which I don't exactly know how to handle. In the family Bible, my grandfather's birth name was recorded as Willie Wade. He always used Wade Hampton as his legal name; that's the name on his marriage license, his delayed birth certificate used for Social Security, his death certificate, etc. That's the name my mother always knew; in fact, she was shocked when I found the record in the Bible, and she had never heard that his name was originally Willie Wade. I'm sure the Bible entry is his; the birth date is correct, and there are no other entries except his immediate family. Also, the handwriting definitely is his mother's. Since there were no birth certificates in NC in 1877, I can't check that source. Could people arbitrarily change a child's name without any registration in that era? I'm assuming so; if they weren't legally "registered" in the first place, there wouldn't be anything to change at the courthouse. How do I handle the name change in docum! e! >nting him as my grandfather? > >You're going to think my great-grandmother was a little loopy (which I don't think she was from the business records she left and from what I know about her), but there is another discrepancy not quite as important. The date in that same Bible (also in her handwriting) for my great-uncle's death is 2 days off from the date on his tombstone. As I said, I don't think that is as important as my grandfather's name, but it is an error. > >I'm bringing up these instances of errors just as examples of how records can be inaccurate. Except for my grandfather's name, the errors are human; but someday they could throw a genealogist into a tizzy. ' > >Thanks for any thoughts you have for handling my grandfather's name! > >Caroline > > > >==== VA-SOUTHSIDE Mailing List ==== >The USGenWeb Project http://www.usgenweb.org >Do Not Post Chain Letters, Virus Warnings, etc. to this list. >This list is for Genealogy, History and Related Topics. > >============================== >Census images 1901, 1891, 1881 and 1871, plus so much more. >Ancestry.com's United Kingdom & Ireland Collection. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13968/rd.ashx > > >

Caroline asked: >Could people arbitrarily change a child's > name without any registration in that era? I'm assuming so; > if they weren't legally "registered" in the first place, > there wouldn't be anything to change at the courthouse. Indeed, they could. My own great-grandmother was named Martha Lucinda at birth. As a teenager, she came to dislike the aunt for whom she was named and just changed her name to Mattie Brooks Beavers. She lived the rest of her life as Mattie Brooks. She was born in 1874 so she had no birth certificate, driver license or other documents to deal with. I guess it was simpler then. Mildred "Mickey" Fournier 1730 SE CR 252 Lake City, FL 32025 mickey@se.rr.com