Can Ohio and Oklahoma be confused?
I mean really?
They are in different areas of the US. Oklahoma has a unique shape–I mean can you really confuse these two shapes?
But think about it for a second. On a form, in the spot for place of birth, someone writes “Ok.”Could that script possibly be interpreted as “Oh?”And then when they type the place of birth on another record, it becomes “Ohio?”
It’s not as improbable as you think.
There’s a reason why it is suggested you think about how information may have actually come to be in a record.
One response
And let us not forget PA and IA.
My grandfather was born in Cherry Valley, Pennsylvania. I have his birth certificate, not to mention the testimony of two of his children, to verify this.
His death certificate, filled in by a clerk at a hospital, not a relative, lists his birth place as Cherry Valley, IA.
The death certificate copy I’ve seen is typed, so I am not the one misreading the state of death.
Best I can figure is the clerk was reading a handwritten state of birth with a big loop on the P, or maybe the clerk wrote with a big loop on the P and some state bureaucrat misread it.