The local radio station’s website referred to the Hollywood actor as a “native” (their exact word) of a town near where I live. His biography on another website (supposedly vetted by the actor himself) indicated he was born in a different town forty miles away. Of course it’s possible the actor doesn’t know where he was born, but in this day and age with a birth certificate required for many things it would seem that he would know where he was born.
I’m suspecting (sans evidence) that the actor was born in the more distant town and grew up in the nearer one. That’s a rabbit hole that I do not need to go down as he’s not even a distant relative.
But it reminded me that people sometimes indicate they are born in the town they grew up in even though they were born somewhere else and are well aware of where they were born compared to where they grew up. Sometimes it’s accidental and occasionally it’s done to keep details about their birth private. There are also people who really think they were born in the town where they grew up even though they were actually born somewhere else.
And what question do people sometimes hear when they are asked “where were you born?” Did they hear “where were you from?” Do they just answer with the location where they grew up? Today, for a variety of reasons, most people tend to give the actual place of birth.
But that wasn’t always necessarily true in 1900 or in 1850.
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