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Monday, April 4, 2016

J F Rutherford's date of birth


A question was asked on the CTR Passport post about the color of J F Rutherford's eyes. JFR's passport applications have survived for 1910, 1913, 1920 and 1923. They all state that his eye color was "dark", but "dark what?" is not specified. But in making the search, I found his 1920 passport application of interest. It contained a document signed by his 77 year old mother to give his true date of birth, since births had not been officially registered at the time. The recognized date comes from the family Bible.




1 comment:

Andrew Martin said...

Missouri was apparently way behind in registering births. When my grandfather applied for social security in 1975(?), there was no record of his birth in Schuyler County, in NE Missouri - one of the last to have comprehensive records. Even at that late date, they needed to go through a similar process - the family needed to locate two persons, older than him, who were living in the county in 1910 and who remembered his being born. They needed to sign affidavits to that effect.