Be Kind to James Day on Aug 23??

It's a valuable exercise to review old documents for new information, especially when researching family history.  Sometimes you find new and interesting tidbits of information.  Sometimes you don't, but it's still fun to look.  This is one of those stories, except some of it may be news to you.

This is a copy of our grandfather Francis "Weenie" Flynn's birth certificate.  It can be considered an official document because it has a raised seal.  I think you already know he was born in Emporium PA and that his parents were Patrick Flynn and Barbara Lippman.  Though, take note here, that his mother is listed as "Barbetta Lypmann".  It's the only time I've seen her referred to as Barbetta but I need to remember to keep that in mind for future research.  Other than Barbara, I've seen her listed at Betty a couple of times.

One very important item to look at when reviewing such documents is the date it was issued.  In this case, this appears to have been issued June 7 1954, when he was 47.  It is not uncommon to have to round up new copies of vital records for a variety of reasons including marriage, passport application, establish identity to pursue estates and so forth.  Whatever the case, it usually indicates some significant life event and is therefore worth noting.  But I am not sure what was happening for Weenie in 1954 that would warrant the need for his birth record.  We may never know but it leaves a little crumb to follow someday.

More interesting to note is that this is a corrected certificate (see upper right corner).  The corrections are noted on the back as seen here:

Perhaps you already knew that Francis was originally named James Thomas but did you know his birth date was not originally listed at August 24?!?!?!?!  What if BKTF Day was BKTJ Day a day earlier????  What if what we have always known to be true and celebrated .....wasn't?

Traditionally, families would name the first son after his paternal grandfather--whose name was supposedly Timothy so I'm not really certain where James came from, but Thomas is Barbara's father's name.  That James sitting there is another tantalizing clue to follow someday.  Someday........