I need to apologize to someone. I'm not sure who it is, so I'll post the apology on the blog and hopefully she'll read my comments. I was adamant that Olive's middle name was spelled "Mae." There has been a controversy in the family recently about whether Wayne's mom's middle name was spelled "Mae" or "May." I haven't ever seen Mother Osmond use the spelling of "May." On all the genealogy sheets she gave us she always spelled her middle name "Mae." Wayne even remembers her saying that her middle name was the same as Mae West.
Alan ordered his birth certificate and under his mother's name it says Olive Mae Davis. Someone ordered Olive's birth certificate and her middle name was spelled "May" on her birth certificate. The family has decided to go with the spelling of "May" on the brass plaque that is going to be displayed at the cabin where she was born. I love the spelling "May" because that's the month she and I were both born and on the same day!
Now I'm still wondering what the spelling is on her church records. Wayne's legal name has always been Melvin Wayne Osmond. That is how it is also recorded on the church records. A few years ago we ordered Wayne's original birth certificate so he could get into Canada for a show and his passport had expired. The birth certificate said his name is "Wayne Osmond." There isn't a mention of Melvin. That really excited him because he's never liked his real first name. His social security number, church records, passport and driver's license all say his name is Melvin Wayne Osmond so it would be a hassle to change it now. Besides that his parents wanted him to have the name Melvin Wayne Osmond.
I guess only Olive and her parents know the spelling for sure and I guess it really doesn't matter but because I've been involved in family history for the past 10 years and realize there are so many variations on most people's names I can't help but be curious. The general rule is that we use a primary source for the information. A birth certificate is a primary source so that's probably why they decided to go with the spelling of "May." Maybe Mother Osmond just liked the spelling of "Mae" better. I'll probably have to wait until the next life to find out for sure how she and her parents wanted it spelled.
11 comments:
Kathy,
This sounds like exactly what happened in our family a few years ago. My Mother's name is Cora Lee, and one of my sisters always insisted that it was altogether "Coralee", but I remembered that my Mother never signed it like that, she always signed two seperate names. So to settle it we got her birth certificate and it was indeed two seperate names. Also my oldest sister Joan always thought her middle name was spelled "Gayle", but when she got a copy of her birth certificate it's spelled "Gail". This made her very upset and she said she was not going to change it. We checked into it and whatever is on the birth certificate is the legal way. So Wayne can be happy he's not Melvin after all! :)
Kathy,
I named my son Jeffrey Allen. On his birth certificate his first name is spelled Jeffery and on his S.S. card it is spelled Jeffrey. I'm guessing when the birth certificate was being written out, someone at the hospital spelled the name wrong and I did not see the error. He now spells his name Jeffery and I'm hoping he does not have problems down the road with just one letter switched in his name.
Very interesting! I'll be sure to take photos of that brass plaque at the dedication. I hope you are there Kathy, it would be great to meet you.
I always remembered Mother Osmond's middle name being spelled May. I'm like Wayne though. My real name is Sharon Diane - but I don't even answer to the name Sharon. Once I graduated from high school, I started going by Sherry - and that is with a "y", not "ie" thank you - HEE HEE!!!! All of my legal documents (checking accounts, taxes, etc.) are with Sharon - but everything else I go by Sherry - even on Facebook and the forums. I don't know why I changed it to Sherry - but I like it much better than Sharon. Wayne and Marie are the only 2 that don't use their "official" first names, right?? Olive Marie and Melvin Wayne.
For Sherry of IN: Wayne and Marie aren't the only ones because I heard Donny was really Donald Clark and Jimmy was James Arthur hope that helped.Kathy thanks so much for the blog I love it.
I sure anyone who does geneology knows that when the censes use to record people name they wrote it the way it sounded ot he way it was spelled. My dads uncle, Frank Benjamin was always spelled just that way but on a censes record we found it Benjamin Frank. My dad (79) knew his uncle and knew his name was Frank but anyone looking up those records will find it written the wrong way. It makes it hard to search for recorded the way they use to do things. Also, my dad's last name is spelled Padgett, but his dad's name is spelled Paget different from my dad's ( semi-long story about how they spelled it in the past) so we have to look up Padgett, Paget, pagett, Paggett. It's a mess.
Interesting story. I would assume that Mother Osmond's parents filed the paper for the birth certificate and spelled it May, although it could easily have been a typo back when she was born. My mother's middle name is also Mae like Mae West, but in my mothers case it's because she is related to Mae West. My mothers birthday is also in May, on the 5th.
Tom just found a hand written note that Mother Osmond had written. It said that she preferred "Mae" over "May" because it wasn't as common and was different. I guess that answers our question.
Kathy, I had this conversation once with Mother Osmond as my middle name is “May” also. It was at the time that Marie made the Olive” May” Doll. I had asked her which way she spelled her name and she said “May” I said me too. Then I proceeded to tell her that growing up and in my early 20’s I changed the spelling to “Mae” as somehow that looked better than “May” She laughed because she said she did the same thing. She said she finally grew out of the “Mae” and started spelling it the way it was supposed to be and that was “May” I laughed and said me too. So we laughed – we were both decided we were born with “May” and we would stay with May.
Teresa “May” Heard
Thanks Teresa! You answered our question!
It sounds like there are many problems with Birth Certificates. My husband was always told that his father's name was Joseph Edward and that his name was Bradley Joseph. But when he sent for the birth certificates, there were no middle names listed!
All my kids Birth Certificates were handed to me to look over and I got to catch any mistakes. I wonder if they did that a long time ago? It looks like they didn't?
I love reading your posts, Kathy. They way you write is called "User Friendly". Aren't these blogs the best? You have a talent there and I bet you didn't even know you had it!
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