Birthplace of Justice Found

Actor James Robertson Justice was very proud of being Scottish, "habitually donning a kilt, adopting a Gaelic name, and beating Sean Connery for the job of rector of Edinburgh University." Too bad he wasn't Scottish.

[R]esearch for a new biography on Justice has revealed the actor was a "huge liar" whose real birthplace was distinctly un-Scottish: a London borough.

Writer James Hogg examined Justice's birth certificate and was astounded to discover his subject was born at 39 Baring Road, Lewisham.

He also discovered his name at birth was James Norval Harold Justice. Hogg believes he may have dropped his original middle names and adopted a new one to justify his habit in later life of wearing the Robertson tartan. [Link]

Free Baby With Every Fill-Up?

Judy Quiban and Douglas Whittaker's baby was born at a Chevron station in Elk Grove, California.

Quiban and Whittaker were on their way to the hospital. Judy was having contractions. But the couple realized their car did not have much gasoline.

Whittaker pulled into the gas station and started pumping gas as Quiban was yelling at him to call 911.

Holden's birth certificate actually shows the gas station as the place of birth with the father in attendance.

"Chevy!" Quiban's daughter said, suggesting a nickname for the baby. [Link]

It Followed Her to School One Day

The birthplace of nursery-rhyme heroine Mary Sawyer in Sterling, Massachusetts, burned to the ground on Sunday morning. According to "descendant" Diane T. Melone, Mary really did have a little lamb.

The lamb became attached to Mary, crying when she left it. One day her younger brother, Nathaniel, urged Mary to take the lamb to school with them. Once there, the lamb lay under Mary’s desk and she covered it with a cloak. But when the teacher called Mary to the front of the room, the lamb followed — and the children laughed.

A boy, John Roulstone Jr., ... was visiting Mary’s school when the lamb incident happened.

John wrote a poem about three verses long about Mary and the lamb and gave it to Mary. [Link]

Sarah Hale gets the writing credit by some accounts. The school where the events were supposed to have occurred now stands on the grounds of the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Mass., moved there by Henry Ford in 1925.

By the way, Mary Elizabeth Sawyer and her husband, Columbus Tyler, seem not to have had descendants. They married in 1835 and settled in Somerville, Mass., where Columbus was for many years steward and Mary matron at the McLean Asylum for the Insane. The census records give no indication of children. She died in 1889, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.

They Didn't Have a Ticket to Ride

Tom Kemp at Genealogy Library News has gathered some stories of people born on trains. Here are some famous, and almost famous, people who came aboard between stations:

• Rudolf Nureyev was born somewhere on the Siberian Railway, as was fellow dancer Tamara Toumanova.
• Professional bowler June Courington came into the world on a train carrying her father's baseball team on a barnstorming tour through the South.
• Marlon Brando's second wife, Maria "Movita" Castaneda, was born aboard a train in Arizona.
• Maria von Trapp of Sound of Music fame was born on a train en route to Vienna.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew was born on a train in the Panama Canal Zone. He was named for Dr. Rodney Cline, a passenger in the whites-only section who assisted in the delivery.

[Hat tip: Genealogy Blog]

Dad Delivers Own Father's Day Gift

Kaine Gilman of Maine was on the receiving end Sunday when his partner gave birth to their daughter on the bathroom floor.

"Having the baby on the bathroom floor is amazing," the proud father told the Bangor Daily News. "But to have her on Father's Day is just unbelievable. How many fathers got a gift like this today?"

"Boy, everyone has been calling me Dr. Gilman all day," he said. Proud of his role in the delivery, Gilman drove Sunday afternoon to BB's Tattoo in Newport to get his daughter's name and birth date inked on his shoulder. [Link]

If he ever does become an obstetrician, he should probably skip the step where he gets a tattoo after each delivery.

Her Second Car Parturition

Stephanie Green needs to move closer to a hospital.

For the second time in 17 months, Green had a baby Tuesday while en route to a hospital. Doctors planned to induce labor Thursday, but baby Zaria had other plans.

"I thought I was gonna make it this time, but she changed all that very quickly," Green said. [Link]

[Thanks again, Nancy!]

A Major League Puzzle

Luis Castro had a brief stint with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1902, and has been recognized as the first player from Latin America to play big-league baseball in the modern era. Problem is, he might have been born in the United States.

According to e-mails exchanged between the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., and a member of the SABR biographical committee in 2001, these were the facts uncovered for a baseball player named Louis Castro during that period: He was born on Nov. 25, 1876 in the United States, he worked in a saloon, married a woman named Margaret and lived in Flushing for most of his life. His father, Nestor Castro, and mother, Agnes Wasquees, were both born in South America and he died at the age of 64 on Sept. 24, 1941 at Manhattan State Hospital on Wards Island.

So that's it. Castro's not only American, he's a New Yorker, right? Maybe.

Castro's death record says he was born in the United States, but the 1910 Georgia Census gives his birthplace as Medellin, Colombia. [Link]

The reputed 1910 census entry for Castro is found on page 132A of roll 192 (Atlanta, Ward 6). His occupation appears to be "undertaker," which must have conflicted with the "long minor-league career after 1902" attributed to him on this forum.

Castro played ball at Manhattan College in the late 1890s. Was he the Louis Castro, born Aug. 1877 in New York, boarding at 2329 8th Avenue in 1900, not far from where the campus was then located? His parents were natives of Australia, which Wikipedia tells me is not the same place as South America.

Anyone with an Ancestry.com subscription and time to kill want to look for Luis/Louis in their indexes?

Was the Queen Mum Born in Transit?

I don't remember hearing this when the Queen Mother died in 2002, but apparently there was some question where she was born.

Not a little mystery surrounded her birth. A plaque in the 12th-century church of St Paul's Walden proclaims that she saw the first light of day on her parent's Hertfordshire estate, but that has proved not to be the case. Later in life she was told that she was born at their London home in Grosvenor Square. There was even a family story that she may have been born in a horse-drawn ambulance - or even in the back of a taxi. When told that it was entirely possible, the Queen Mother is supposed to have put on her best Lady Bracknell voice - like her grandson, the Prince of Wales, she was a good mimic - and exclaimed: "In a taxi? How quaint!" [Link]

An Enterprising Town

In 1985, Riverside, Iowa, declared itself the future birthplace of Star Trek's Captain Kirk, who is scheduled to be born on March 22 in a couple of centuries. The locals even erected a plaque to show the exact place of his conception.

At local bar Murphy's, a plaque states Kirk was "conceived at this point" - hanging on the wall instead of its original spot under the pool table.

"Regulars got a kick out of seeing Star Trek fans crawl under there to look, but it seemed kind of cruel," said Becky Laroche, who works at People's Bank, the town's only bank. [Link]

An Unusual Christian Birth

The oddest thing happened last month on remote Pitcairn Island: for only the second time in 21 years, a baby was born.

Adrianna Tracey Christian, born on March 3, is Nadine Christian's fourth child and a ninth generation descendant of Fletcher Christian, the Bounty mutineer who settled the Pacific island in 1790.

Because of the difficulty of getting medical treatment on the isolated, inaccessible island, for the past 21 years the island's women - with the exception of Mrs Christian - have travelled to New Zealand to give birth, leaving Pitcairn six months into their pregnancy and making the long journey by boat and plane. [Link]

Call Him 'Merisi da Milano'

Michelangelo Merisi was better known as "Caravaggio," the name of his hometown. Now the residents of that northern Italian town are dismayed to learn that the Late Renaissance painter was born in Milan, and baptized at the church of Santa Maria della Passarella.

Leafing through volumes of church records, Vittorio Pirami, a retired employee of Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest conglomerate, claimed a "special light" guided him to a page which records the baptism of Caravaggio.

"Today, the 30th, Michel Angelo, the son of Mr Fermo Merisi and Mrs Lucia Aratori, was baptised. Mr Francesco Sessa was present," read the Latin document.

Caravaggio's mayor says he can't understand why Milan would try to steal their most famous citizen.

"Perhaps they are lacking a famous 16th century artist to call their own," he said. "This is Italy, there is probably someone who has a birth certificate claiming Leonardo Da Vinci was also from Milan." [Link]

Their Son Arrived in a Pink Cadillac

Shonda and Rick Durham's third child was born on the way to the hospital in the car his mother earned as a Mary Kay consultant.

As if being born in a Pink Cadillac wasn't unique enough, his birth certificate is also different than other newborns.

"It say[s] I-75 on it at mile marker 67," Rick said. [Link]

That's Not the Birthplace He Remembers

A plaque has been installed at 25 Scott Park Road, Burnley, Lancashire, to mark the birthplace of Sir Ian McKellen. Problem is, the Lord of the Rings actor says that's the wrong address.

But Burnley reference library has a copy of the 67-year-old Sir Ian's birth certificate which states he was born at the house.

[Local historian Ken Spencer] said: "The birth certificate clearly states he was born at 25 Scott Park Road.

"We have also checked it out on the electoral roles [sic] at the time and it said the McKellens lived there.

"The family did live at another house in Burnley in Westbourne Avenue round about that time, but we do not know why he has said this." [Link]

A Good Vehicle for Making Deliveries

Adrienne Hopkins and Craig Buck's forest green Toyota 4Runner was stolen this fall, and with it their daughter's birthplace. Adrienne went into labor the night of Jan. 6, 2003, and gave birth en route to the hospital.

When they arrived at the hospital, nurses rushed out with a gurney to take Adrienne and Molly out of the Toyota, and later cleaned up the car.

The birth certificate lists the family car and state Route 163 as Molly's place of birth.

Molly knows she was born in the car, but it isn't a big deal to the 3-year-old.

“She doesn't know that other kids aren't born in the car,” Adrienne said. “Later in life, it will be pretty special.” [Link]

[Hat tip: Genea-Musings]

Stowaway Ejected in Mid-Flight

Genealogy Blog passes along this story of a baby born somewhere over the Atlantic, together with a link that explains what her birth certificate might say.

A baby girl has been delivered by a British Airways crew and two medical students after her mother went into labour five hours into a flight.

Baby Nadine was born six weeks prematurely before flight BA 215, from London to Boston, could land at the nearest airport in Halifax, Canada.

Mr Dobe said he had noticed the woman looking "uncomfortable" during the pre-flight emergency procedures demonstration.

"She was clearly pregnant and I could see she was a bit uncomfortable. But I thought she was just scared of flying," he said. [Link, via Genealogy Blog]

Roadside Births

Ruth Gembe has deep roots in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and in the community of Roadside. In her capacity as resident genealogist of the Franklin County Library System, she sometimes has to assure people that their relatives were not born in a ditch.

Some people actually are offended by a birth certificate that says “Roadside,” Gembe said. She explains that it does not mean the person was born along the road - it's an actual place. [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Humble Birthplace Marked By 38-Foot Monument

From The Washington (D.C.) Post:

Millions of Mormons Fete Founder's Birth

By JENNIFER DOBNER
The Associated Press
Friday, December 23, 2005; 3:55 AM

SHARON, Vt. -- On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Mormon church founder Joseph Smith's birth, church President Gordon B. Hinckley voyaged to the Vermont hillside where Smith was believed to have been born.

Looking up at the monument built in Smith's honor, he had just one observation: "Beautiful."

[snip]

Records from Smith family diaries place his birth on Dec. 23, 1805 on the country hillside, near the New Hampshire border. A hearthstone and a moss-covered front step are all that remain of the original home where the Smith family ran a small farm.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built and dedicated the 38 1/2-foot monument to Smith — one foot of granite for each year of his life — in 1905.

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree