WARNING: Birth Certificate Troubles
The only thing stopping me from sending this submission is the arrival of my mother's birth certificate. One every single document and as far as any of our family were concerned, my now deceased mother was born in Portsmouth NH in 1928.
Naturally, I applied for her BC through the NH Vital Records Dept. as prescribed, but got back a form letter that said there was no such record on file. A sticky note on the letter said there was a record of this birth in the State of Maine.
That's weird...but hey...they are right across the river and, so maybe Mom was born in Eagleton rather than Pawnee as we all thought all this time (You Parks & Rec people will get the joke).
Repeated the process with the State of ME vital records (via crappy VitalCheck website) and today received the same letter that I got from NH...no such record on file.
WTF!!!!
So I call NH and got a very nice lady who explained that they contacted Portsmouth Town Clerk when they couldn't find a record and they sent back a copy of what was very clearly a ME state BC. So I asked what town she was born in and this is where it got interesting.
Apparently she was born at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and, at the time, there was a huge legal dispute over the property being in ME vs. NH. So, depending on the person in charge at the time, the BC's issued from the Shipyard could have been either ME or NH.
So...I'm hopeful that the NH folks will be kind enough to send me a copy of the BC they got from Portsmouth. Failing that I am NOT holding up this submission any longer and wait for a conclusion. I have plenty of other documents including a 1930 Census, my parents' marriage certificate and my mother's Death Certificate all of which clearly list my grand parents (G0's) as her parents. I will simply add a paragraph to my cover letter to explain the stupid pissing contest between these two states and hope they will let that pass.
THIS IS EXHAUSTING!!
And, honestly, I am NOT one of these Genealogy Nerds that finds this process fascinating. This is just a means to an end to me. So no, I am not enjoying this part of the journey one bit.