My mother and a lot of her siblings were born on a farm. It was before births were recorded. When she had to have a birth certificate when she applied for social security benefits she found out how to get one. At that time, she had to get someone who was there when she was born to verify. One of her older brothers did that for her.

My mother was born Magdalene. Later on, as an adult she started calling herself Margaret so on her birth certificate she had Margaret instead of her true birth name. I didn't like that, but she had a brother whose name was Leroy. He was always called L.Y. though so that's what he had put on his certificate. I never liked that either.