I need some help or advice on resolving a dilemma, please.

Question

I have run into a situation where a child was 5 months old by the 18th April 1910 (census), so was born about November 1909.

The child grows up, marries, and has children, then dies.

The death certificate, dated 22 Sept 1944, gives his mother's last name as Palmer.
A delayed birth certificate — sworn affidavit 5 Feb 1945, 4-plus months AFTER he died, claiming date of birth 21 June 1909, is signed by someone whose name is near unreadable, but doesn't look anything like Georgia Palmer, or Kelley/Kelly.  There is also a strong possibility the mother was in Chicago in 1945, not Arkansas where the affidavit was sworn.  (She was in Chicago in 1935, and still there in 1940, and there in 1961, but was buried in Arkansas in 1966.)

His Find a Grave memorial uses the dates per the death certificate — and the later delayed birth certificate.

A delayed birth certificate for his half-sister, sworn in 1961 and signed by a different hand as mother, gives mother's last name as Parrott, and is signed by Georgia Parrott McLain (which ties in with marriage documents from 1897).

I am 99.9999% certain this is the same man as the 5-month old baby from 1910's census.

How do I resolve the issue of the mother's last name not matching any other documents thus far found?  (I have spent hours and hours looking for, and reading, documents for this family, particularly the mother.)

These two documents — death cert, and delayed birth cert — are the only places I have seen the last name of Palmer for the mother.  Her stated place of birth matches what is known (not that that actually means a lot, because it could be anywhere within the same state).  The state is Arkansas, and pretty much the family stayed in Jackson County.

The father's name and place of birth match everything else that is known (not a terrible lot).

Is it probable for someone to pretend to be someone else and make a sworn statement, thus breaking the law, just to have a birth certificate issued after someone was dead? 

What would be the reason for getting a birth certificate for a dead person?
 

Comments

I have never seen a case of a birth certificate issued after death.  Most states say explicitly that the person in question must apply for him or herself.  This sounds really squirrelly and I wouldn’t rely on the information.  Did he have a Social Security number?  If so, ordering the Soc Sec file might help, some kind of proof of birth would have been required.

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I have never seen it before, either.  But I have the documents saved to my computer, and the dates are definitely off - as is the signature of the "mother" on the man's delayed birth certificate.

If ordering the soc sec file is going to cost $$, forget it.  I am not related to this family.

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Reads like something from the movies... obtaining a birth certificate after the facts.

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I had the same thought!

His WWII draft registration is the first time I can find where the 21st June 1909 birthdate is used.

By the time of his death he seems to also have acquired a middle name (but that's not so terribly unusual).

I cannot find anything that indicates there may have been another Hinton Kelley being confused with "my" Hinton, so am forced to conclude that this is "my" guy.

And I was || close to creating a profile for the mother so I could add siblings. 

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And, of course, having said I couldn't find another Hinton Kelley, I just now found a Hinton Kelly, born 31 Dec 1909, in Lakinburg, North Carolina.  But NC isn't Arkansas, so I don't think these two are likely to be confused.

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The only possible explanation I can think of would be that there were unclaimed funds in the name of the deceased being held by the state of Arkansas, or perhaps some unresolved inheritance, and someone was trying to construct a proof of lineage in order to establish entitlement to funds or property.  Unclaimed funds being held by a state is not a rarity, and there are those who run profitable businesses helping descendants claim those funds for a commission.  It would probably be very difficult to try to research that possibility for a case that old.

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Unless there was unpaid money from his WWII service (if he actually served (because I know registering doesn't mean actual enlistment)), there wouldn't seem to be any likelihood of him amassing much as a driver for an ice company.

The closest to "wealth" I have found is perhaps, and that's a big perhaps, by way of his half-sister's husband's family.

It's the incorrect last name given for the mother that has become my sticking point. Should I just ignore that and create mama's profile with the information I have? 

I need the mother to connect the siblings.

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Having said this :

These two documents — death cert, and delayed birth cert — are the only places I have seen the last name of Palmer for the mother. 

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I have just found a delayed birth certificate for the older brother, also naming the mother as Georgia Palmer. 

The person signing the affidavit as his mother, on the same day as the affidavit for Hinton's delayed certificate, is one Emma Ewing.  Not Georgia.

IS it possible that a family rift would cause this kind of wrongdoing?  The form states it is a crime to make a false statement, yet this Emma, signing a declaration stating she is the mother, is clearly NOT the person being named as mother.  AND Georgia Kelley was still alive at the time (she died in 1966, if I didn't already say that).

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I have created a profile for Georgia.  Will edit it in to the question.

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The 2nd marriage of Will mentioned in the research note was misread. He married Annis Hines in Nov. 1902. I made the correction and added a link to the image.

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Thanks, Connie!  I think my eyes had just read too many of those old documents.  That, or I just didn't properly understand the American; being an alien and all.

Answer 1

If you look at the original of 1910 census (I used the copy on FamilySearch - https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRVJ-9MLF?i=11&cc=1727033&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AMKV3-TLL - the age listed for Hinton is 5/6.  I have never seen this before, and wondered whether it might mean 5/6ths of a year, ie 10 months, hence born in June? On subsequent pages of that same census one finds ages listed as: 1/2, 1/12, 2/3, 1/6, and 2/3.  Apparently this census-taker liked to reduce fractions.

Comments

Thanks, Jim!  I didn't think to look at other ages by that enumerator, so you could well be right.  Certainly something to watch for in future.

Doesn't explain the person signing off on his birth record as his mother, not actually being his mother.  But that's a puzzle for another day.

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Great job, Jim. June matches his Draft Registration too.

Answer 2

Hinton's draft registration has DOB June 21 1909

draft reg filled out and signed by Hinton October 16 1940 at Newport Arkanasas

Comments

Hinton's app for Social Security June DOB also

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Social Security death index June DOB

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death cert filled out by his wife Ruby who may not have known his mother's maiden name

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Eddie -- the informant looks to be Clayton's son, Bud, not Ruby; so even less likely to know grandma's last name, yes?

I can deal with the misinformation so long as I have some kind of reassurance that I am on the right track regards Georgia's last name at birth (or by choice on earliest documentation).  Everything I have says "Parrott", not "Palmer".  Likewise, everything I have says Hinton was the son of Georgia Parrott-McLain and Arthur "Bud" Kelley.  This family uses the name "Bud".  The brother was also known as "Bud".

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Melanie, I find more incorrect birthdates and parents' names than correct ones on death certificates because that info comes a family member rather than an official record. The world war registrations Eddie references here are my go-to for the correct dates (more often correct than social security records which for some reason are often wrong) other than the birth record itself. I love how thorough you are!

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If we want accuracy (and that's important to the CDO part of myself), then thoroughness is the only way to get there.

Sometimes the earliest and only record is a census. It works the same as we come forward, because those documents may exist but are equally out of reach as the older ones which may have existed (and may not have, in some cases), but no longer do.

I wonder, with some of these, if they grow up with a particular date that was simply chosen because nobody knew the real birthdate (much as has occurred in the past with orphans, or adoptees), and that's what became the legal DoB.  The delayed birth certificates may not even reflect the absolute truth, but may be what the family has chosen to believe.  (It's still the non-mother signing as the mother that gets me.)

As to inaccurate dates on death certificates - it's just as bad when the informant gives accurate information, then the transcriber puts their own slant on it - such as making Black people white, or having a baby being born the day AFTER he died.

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"I wonder, with some of these, if they grow up with a particular date that was simply chosen because nobody knew the real birthdate" 

Yes, you'll see this a lot.

Answer 3

On Norma's family tree it list her father  Will Mclain b-1874

mother as Georgia Parrott b-1878-1966 m-1897 Arkansas

Comments

Yeah .. and her second husband was Arthur "Bud" Kelley- married 1902.

"Her" being Georgia.