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One of my children was born in the state next to the one we lived in because that's where my doctor was before I moved. That state is his birthplace although he never lived in that state so his obituary will be strange if they list the town and state he was born in.
Doesn't the hospital fill out the birth certificate stating where you were born (city, county, and state) which is where the hospital is located?
My parents drove 20 miles to the hospital in the next town. I was born there, not where my parents were living. That's what my birth certificate states and to say I was born elsewhere would just be fiction and weirdness.
One of my children was born in the state next to the one we lived in because that's where my doctor was before I moved. That state is his birthplace although he never lived in that state so his obituary will be strange if they list the town and state he was born in.
Why do you think it would be strange to list the actual state he was born in? What is on his birth certificate? He lived at the hospital for a day or two, didn't he?
Many people live near state lines. Or in cities without hospitals and so go to another town for childbirth. It is quite common.
I was born in McCook, NE in the hospital closest to where my parents lived. Place of birth was McCook, NE and then went home to Bartley, NE (pop approx 250).
Sometimes when filling out a form, it asks for my "place of birth." I consider my "place of birth" the city in which the hospital was located, which is next to my "hometown" where I grew up. I wasn't born in my hometown. There's no hospital there.
The answer is where you were born, not where your "first home" was. I think this actually matters. A relative a few years back put the wrong POB on a passport application and it was denied. The situation was the same as being discussed here. Lived in MD, but the hospital was in DC (or vice versa, can't remember now.) It took a while to clear up.
I was born at the Tachikawa AFB hospital, in Tachikawa Prefecture, Japan, in 1967.
So I just say I was born in Tokyo, even though my birth certificate says Tachikawa AFB, Japan. Hope that doesn't confuse any future descendants who are interested in their genealogy
Quote:
Originally Posted by lenora
What place of birth did you provide to the SSA?
For US citizen parents, and military families, who have a child born in a foreign country, there is a process thru the US State Dept, and SSA, to provide them with proper paperwork to apply for SSN, passports, etc.
The great majority of people in my family tree are dead, were born at home or in the same town where they lived, and are not applying for a passport or social security. Actual birth records are unavailable for many of them. If they were living in a satellite community outside of a larger town with a hospital, it would mean more to me to record the home place, since I know something about the communities. I would rather record where they lived than the fact that they maybe had a real hospital bed and a doctor in a town they never lived in. If someone was born in a distant place or a foreign country but lived in the small satellite community, I might note that or leave a footnote comment. I lived in a small town for 37 years that had two hospitals but four or five surrounding counties had no hospitals at all so all hospital births took place in the "big" small town (same state). The living conditions, local culture, religion, economy, and schools were very different in the counties than where the hospitals were located so recording the hospital town would be a bit misleading since they never lived there and it had no real social or cultural influence on their life. In the majority of the cases it makes no difference.
There are details of interest that I might record if they are noted on the birth record. My great-uncle was born "at the Hoffman place" which was a neighboring farm (an orchard) where my paternal great-grandfather worked the first couple years in the US. My maternal grandmother was born at home (common) but the priest was called to the house to baptize her the same night because she was not expected to live more than a few hours. Half of the 10-12 children born to the parents died in infancy or early childhood in the Irish ghetto where they lived. I had an uncle who seemed to be born in three places (three states) based on the census records but I finally found his birth record in Iowa. He had siblings born in Hungary, North Dakota, Iowa, and Missouri.
I've had this question for a while and thought you genealogists will know the answer.
For example, when an obituary says someone was born in (city) does that mean where the hospital is or is it more accurate to state born in the town where the family lived and the child was taken home to?
Seriously, you need to take the info you find in an obituary for "with a grain of salt." The info is only as good as the memory of the person who supplies it. Obituaries can be helpful, but they can also be inaccurate and misleading. (Always rely on official government records.)
I have a perfect example of this: My grandmother always screwed up my grandfather's place of birth. (It's 100% wrong in his obituary.) She somehow got it in her head that he was born in a hospital in a large town. (Reality: He was born on the family farm about 50 miles away from the town.)
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Hope that doesn't confuse any future descendants who are interested in their genealogy
