It's easy to lose sight over how inconsequential genealogy really is in the larger scheme of things. I was talking to a client and gathering some information on her and her family. Her birth date was January 1st. I then found out her husband's was also January 1st. I commented on the coincidence of them both having the same birthday. And she said that actually, she didn't know when her real birthday was. She knew the year, but not when. So when she had to fill in such a date for paperwork to come to the U.S., she chose January 1st (or it was chosen for her, I can't remember which). In any case, her entire family has that as their official birth date, because there are simply no written records to reply upon.
It's hard to believe that I can see the baptism of an ancestor who lived 200 years ago in Scotland or Slovakia, and 500 years ago in England, but there are still some places today that have no birth records. I wonder just what the percentage of the world that is?
So interesting and so true. There are people all over the world coming from war torn areas who have no documentation. I read an autobiographical account just this week of a man who listed his birth year as 1893. He really had no idea what year he was born. 1893 was a guess. Back in the old country his father wrote his year of birth on the cover of the family Talmud according to the Hebrew calendar. The man was never able to accurately figure out the contemporary equivalent.
Posted by: Cynthia Shenette | 10/28/2010 at 11:43 AM