The Proof is in the Plastic

Here's some good advice from Genealogy Blog: If you can't prove it, laminate it.

He Was Looking For a Fight

At 106, Frank Buckles is the youngest of three surviving American World War I veterans. He tried to sign up with the Marines when he was 16, telling them he was 18. They told him he was too young, so he tried again a week later.

"I went back to the recruiting sergeant, and this time I was 21," he said with a grin. "I passed the inspection ... but he told me I just wasn't heavy enough."

Then he tried the Navy, whose recruiter told Buckles he was flat-footed.

Still, Buckles would not quit. In Oklahoma City, an Army captain demanded a birth certificate.

"I told him birth certificates were not made in Missouri when I was born, that the record was in a family Bible. I said, 'You don't want me to bring the family Bible down, do you?"' Buckles said with a laugh. "He said, 'OK, we'll take you."' [Link]

He was too old to serve in the military in World War II, but managed to get captured by the Japanese while on a business trip to the Philippines, and spent 3 1/2 years as a civilian POW.

Genealogy On Trial

In 1943, a federal court jury was asked to decide whether the late Mrs. A. V. Lane of Dallas was descended from royalty.

It all started when Mrs. Lane and her husband hired the American Historical Company of New York to prepare a history of the Lane and Hughey families. The volume was delivered after the couple's deaths, and their heirs refused to pay the remaining balance of $8,355, charging that the royal lineage presented was suspect, and that the cost was excessive. But the only question put to the jury was whether the genealogy was true.

"I submit to you the question of whether the book is true," Judge Atwell told the jury. "One side says it is true. The other says it is untrue. Neither side knows, gentlemen, because they were not there when the questioned events did or did not take place. They rely on historical works."

That put the issue down to the question of whether a certain Sir Oliver Carminow, chamberlain to Richard II of England a few centuries ago, married a certain Elizabeth Holland. [Dallas Morning News, May 7, 1943]

Genealogists were put on the stand by both the plaintiff and the defense. The publishing company's genealogist noted that Mrs. Lane had been admitted a member of the Plantagenet Society and the Daughters of the Barons of Runnymede based on the same information found in the book. The jury deliberated for twenty minutes before finding in the company's favor.

Man Digs Up Solid Proof of His Age

I guess Robert Lee Terrell of Macon, Georgia, had never read this story.

From the Stevens Point (Wis.) Daily Journal of Nov. 18, 1970:

Mr. Terrell didn't have a birth certificate or any of the other usual records accepted as evidence of age. So when he was told he would need some proof of his age, he brought his mother's tombstone to the social security office.

The tombstone showed the year of his mother's death, proving that Mr. Terrell must have been at least 62 when he filed his claim.

When the people in the social security office asked Mr. Terrell why he didn't just bring a photograph of the tombstone, he replied: "I was going to get a picture, but the person who was going to take it was out of town, so I just dug up the tombstone itself and brought it in."

Weighty Proof

From The Bismark Tribune of Mar. 5, 1936:

Hartford, Conn., March 5—(AP)—The tombstone over his father's grave served Thursday as birth certificate to assure an applicant of obtaining an old age pension.

Edward H. Reeves, director of the Connecticut old age assistance bureau, assured the applicant whose name he withheld, he would not have to bring the stone into the bureau to prove his date of birth was carved thereon. A birth record is a legal requirement.