In my 40+ years in genealogy mainly in probate genealogy, I have seen many a funny name, circumstance etc. Just thought I would share some funny and interesting anecdotes.
Distinctive or amusing names I have come across in my work:
May Day
Annette Ball
Win Mills
Justin Case
Shek Ubuti
Wen Yu Poo
Rick Shaw
Mr Shytykov
Amanda Lying
Arsenio Tito
Kurt Marshall Russell
Jason Andor
Never believe anything until it can be confirmed.
Some Australian death certificates list the children of a deceased along with their dates of birth. On receiving one such death certificate there were two children of the deceased listed with the same date of birth. Twins. Wrong, they were half-siblings. When we received their birth certificates there were two different mothers listed. Never assume anything!
I have seen many children born to a couple where the husband/father of a child had been dead for many years. And that was way before sperm could be preserved.
I have also seen birth certificates of children born in Australia with no mother named on the certificate. Odd but true. One was the birth certificate of an adopted child with no mother listed. The child born to a mother when she was married to a man who was not the father of the child. The couple divorced and the woman married the father of the child. The child was adopted but only the new father was listed on the birth certificate, not the mother. I asked the NSW Registry why. The answer was that the church was very influential at the time and the name of an adulterous woman could not put on the new birth certificate.
It is not uncommon that a couple has two children with the same name. This occurred in early days when the family ran out of given names and recycled the them. It also occurred when a child was born to an unwed couple who subsequently married and gave their second child the same name as their first, who was adopted out of the family. The author Jeffrey Archer was the second Jeffrey Archer born to his parents. The first was born before the parents wed and was adopted out of the family.
In my role as a probate genealogist, I have acted for many women who changed their age when young, only for it to come home to bite them when they needed to prove ownership of property. I have seen changes of 19 years. In some eastern block-countries it was assumed after the war and for many years after, that the original records of births, deaths and marriages were destroyed. Vital records were recreated using affidavits. Many a person became younger using this system. How do I know? Over the last 20 years original records have surfaced.
I have had a great career and can tell lots of stories. Once a client flew me from Melbourne to Kalgoorlie WA to get some papers signed. (Nice job if you can get it.) After signing the papers at the airport, the heir asked me if I would like to see his dongle. Having flown in to Kalgoorlie in the morning and flying out that evening I agreed, not knowing what I was in for. I found out that in those parts their prefab houses were called Dongles!
In the days before phone numbers became the de facto Australian card numbers and were published, I rang an heir who claimed she was not who I was looking for. I was a little confused and kept talking and told her how to contact me if she wanted. A few days later she contacted me. Her story was she married husband A, divorced him and married husband B who died. I was working on B’s estate. She had gone back to now ex-husband A but she had never told him about B and did not want to. We had to deal with her through a friend, so her ex-husband A never found out that she inherited from B. That could not happen now with ID requirements.
I have enjoyed my career and had much joy interviewing people about their relationships and making it a little less difficult to receive their inheritances.
And remember there is always some element of truth in family anecdotes.
