Confusion about multiple spouses and who's kids are whom's

[Scott_R]

I'm having a bunch of trouble pinning down the parentage of some distant cousins.

HUSBAND1 (H1, my relative) married WIFE in Aug 1958
in Nov 1959 SON1 was born.

H1 was killed in a car accident in 04 Nov 1961
SON2 was born in 31 July 1962

So, SON2 could have been conceived while H1 was alive.

WIFE married HUSBAND2 (H2) in APRIL 1967
DAUGHTER 1 was born in Jan 1969, so presumably the child of H2

The problem: The "Texas Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics" shows H2 as the father for both sons in the online printouts for 1959 and 1962, respectively!

So, I can only think of two possibilities:
1) H2 adopted the sons. But I can't imagine that the Texas Birth Index would have been amended to show this.
2) all the time H1 was married to WIFE, she was two-timing with H2--though that the two didn't marry until five and a half years after H1 died is a puzzle.

Any thoughts?

FWIW, I found one listing that had Son1 listed as
SON1'S name (H1's name) H2's name
but I can't locate that record again offhand; it might just have been someone else's genealogical listing or even something autogenerated

Edit: just saw that somehow words were changed in my post... maybe the system thought I was adding HTML ("HUSBAND #1" became "HUSBAND Home" with "home" in blue text and what looks like a link to nowhere). Fixed it... I hope.

[epona]

It depends.... I have Texas relatives too.

Some birth certs were written close to the time of birth - handwritten.

Some birth certs are typed up later on by a clerk "somewhere" - could be the county courthouse or the State doing some 'cataloging project' trying to modernize as time went on.

Some birth certs are delayed - based on a memory or other proofs. These have more errors (though unintentional) because of that, even if it's the mother giving the information.

If H2 adopted her children, the records are changed and he is plugged in as father legally and H1 goes poof unless someone has saved a footprint type birth record or bible record before that was done.

Texas Birth Indexes ARE modified. Proof is myself. I was born in the 50's in Texas. My mother divorced and remarried later on. So when I was 14 this other husband adopted me. When I look on Ancestry today, it shows the Texas Birth Index record with him - not my orignal father - as parent. So there you go. Texas, by law, does have to change all records or pull them from availability when someone is adopted.

I don't know if it's still that way, but for a long time, the mother's say-so of who the father was could be put on the birth cert at the hospital if there was no man there at the time to vouch being the father. So that would depend on the honesty of the mother. In that kind of situation one wouldn't know if she was intentionally misleading others or not. We ARE talking about Texas here...

Then (for the rest of the viewers) we have the situations where someone just 'takes in' a child and cares for them - whether they were related, non-related or just a new spouse - and the child never knew any difference because they were too little. This happened a lot more than most realized. It really wasn't until after WW2 that record-keeping became more 'required' (which is not really the word I want, more demanded is what I'm hinting at).

If you are looking to prove bloodlines, you will have to check dna matches on that child's descendants, which is a whole other ballpark.

If you are looking at death certs - that's only as good as the Informant's memory.

Hope this helps.

[Bob White]

........The problem: The "Texas Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics" shows H2 as the father for both sons in the online printouts for 1959 and 1962, respectively!

So, I can only think of two possibilities:
1) H2 adopted the sons. But I can't imagine that the Texas Birth Index would have been amended to show this...........

While I don't know what Californian is doing currently, I, like "epona," have a birth certificate that was modified when I was six years old when my mother's second husband adopted me. A few years ago, I was able to get a copy of the original showing my bio father, her first husband, and had to jump through a few hoops to obtain that.

[Scott_R]

Thanks. Probably wouldn't be worth the time/effort to try to get original birth certificates to check. Took some digging to find records on those children and seeing those other names threw a wrench into it.

In Ancestry, is there a standard way to put in a name change for an adoption, or is it just under "Alias/AKA"?

[Bob White]

I don't know if there is a standard way. My style is to explain the name change/adoption in the Notes both in Reunion and Ancestry plus putting the birth name in the AKA field to help someone to find a record if they only know the birth name. In addition to myself, I have maybe 10-15 people that fit this situation.

[rwalcik]

My wife's mother was adopted in Michigan after both her birth parents died. We were able to get a copy of her original birth certificate by establishing a genetic medical need. It required submitting a request to the family court in the county of adoption and having the judge unseal the original birth certificate.