It can be frustrating to find a record that contains an apparent lie. Before we assume a piece of information or a statement on a record is truly a “lie,” it is important to think about what we know and how accurate our original information is. Are we certain that piece of information really is a lie–or is there something we don’t know or are we the one who is misinformed? Did the person really lie or were they just confused and misunderstood the question? Did the person just guess?
If they did lie, did they do it to protect someone or to protect themselves? Did they lie to “keep peace” with living family members?
It is said there are two sides to every story. Sometimes there are more than that.
One response
I have definitely been there. My great-grandmother provided her maiden name as Hayes. Her maiden name is Wallace. At the age of 15, in 1904, she became pregnant and married the boy, Ray Hayes. She lost the baby and they parted ways. In 1910, she met my great-grandfather. Because she never divorced Hayes, nor was an annulment obtained. In 1911, she had my grandmother, and during thefollowing 7 years had 3 more children and still never married my great-grandfather. In 1918, Hayes died and my great-grandparents married. I have a copy of their original marriage certificate, which showed the year as 1908. I found the marriage register which shows they married in 1918. Going back to the marriage certificate, and when you do look at the date closely, you can see that the date had been altered from 1918 to 1908. I’m not sure why, whenever asked for her maiden name, she always gave the name Hayes. My great-grandfather’s nickname for her was “Hazy”. Did he know the truth of her earlier marriage? And called Hazy because of her background. Or he call her Hazy, as a play on the last name of Hayes? I guess I’ll never know.