Question for all family researchers.  Official documents are official, right?  That is to say, what one reads or discovers on a birth certificate, baptism record, marriage licence or death certificate should be accurate, no?

If you’ve spent any time researching your family, you know that’s probably not the case.  Very much an amateur genealogist, I’ve certainly discovered a number of discrepancies and falsehoods in the various docs I’ve uncovered when researching the mysterious life of my grandfather. 

Consider the matter of his birth certificate.   In “Worcestershire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1812-1922” I learn that he was born in 1890.  Census reports suggest that 1887 or even 1889 may be the accurate year of birth.  Upon his death in 1968, one of the documents he left was a letter from “The General Registers Office” in Lancashire which reported that no birth certificate could be located for my grandfather between the years of 1888 to 1892.  What of these strange happenings?

In a 1932 document found in “California, U.S., Marriage Records”my grandfather unequivocally declares the marriage to be his first, while the younger bride is forced to reveal she is a divorcee at age twenty-one.  Oh, the shame she must have felt.  I wonder that the roles may have been reversed had she been aware my thirty-five-year-old grandfather was still married to another woman at the time of their nuptials, making my grandfather a bigamist and the pending union null and void.

Finally, on my grandfather’s 1968 death certificate, I take note that his mother was born in Ireland, offering a key clue during my early days of research.  The notion of Irish heritage sends me scurry for corroborating records, excitedly anticipating future, epic St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.  I discover some hours later that the information was false, my great-grandmother hailing from Worcestershire, England.  The culprit in this case?  My father who actually filled out the death certificate.  His defence was fairly sound as he explained, “my dad always swore his mother was Irish.”  My vision of a more bombastic St. Patrick’s Day celebration fades from my mind.

The Bottom Line:  No.  Official documents cannot always be trusted.  And the world of genealogy continues to frustrate and delight.