Why did she have two birth certs?

girlyhappyface

My grandmother was adopted. She had two birth certificates with two completely different dates on them, both in February, but two years apart(one was 1914 and one was 1916).
I recently found out that someone else in the family (born in the 1940's) also has two birth certs with different dates and years on them. She was not legally adopted but was raised by other relatives in the family, and was never given confirmation who her parents were... despite the family knowing (her mother's name was on the birth cert, father's name was down as "unknown", but they always denied that they were her parents).

Does anyone know why both these women would have two birth certs? Was it because of the adoptions? Or were birth certs not as official back then as they are now?

annieoburns

Could it be that the first birth cert was for an earlier child that might have died? It was common practice to use the same name again for a later child. Perhaps check death index for intervening time?

shanew

annieoburns wrote: »

Could it be that the first birth cert was for an earlier child that might have died? It was common practice to use the same name again for a later child. Perhaps check death index for intervening time?

I've seen this also - a few families in my ancestors reused names they liked for later registrations after children that died young.



Shane

girlyhappyface

Thanks for the replies. I'll look into it- I always found it confusing!