Which name to use as LNAB when there are two birth registrations with different fathers?

Question

I have come across a person with two different birth registrations.

Edna Kinsley was married to George W. Pearce in 1923 when she gave birth to her son Edward on 30 April. The birth was originally registered in Cook County, Illinois on 19 May 2023. In this record, he is listed as Edward William Pearce and his father is listed as George W. Pearce.

His birth is again registered on 14 December 1923 - same birth date of 30 April 1923. In this record he is listed as Edward Tedescki (Tedeschi) and his father is listed as Albert Tedescki (Tedeschi).

Edna married Albert Tedeschi in 1927 and they had another son, Albert Jr., and stayed together until his death.

Should Edward be Edward William Pearce with Tedeschi as another name per the initial birth registration? Or since it seems the second registration is very likely correct and Albert was his biological father - should it be Tedeschi as the birth name.

The birth records can be found on FamilySearch and are included as sources on his mother's profile.

Comments

Unusual situation. I can only offer and opinion, and that would be to use the second birth record with explanation in the bio, much like you have stated it here.

But then technically his LNAB was the first record of Pearce even though that was not actually his father. But the second record replaces the first making it invalid - maybe???

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I have the opposite opinion - which only demonstrates that this isn't straightforward!  

I would  treat his name and the identity of his father as two separate issues.  

So I would record the LNAB as Pearce, because this was his legal name for the first few months of his life.

His current name would be whichever spelling of Tedeschi he used for the rest of his life, and the other spelling could go in the other names field, if you think it needs to be there.

Who his father was is a different question, and I would attach him as Albert Tedeschi's son, but with the full explanation you've given here in the bio.

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A cousin of my mother probably had two birth certificates. She was born about 1918.

Her mother gave birth to a stillborn son who had a birth certificate and death certificate.

The mother brought home the girl baby, who came with a birth certificate with a birthdate a couple of months before the stillborn. The birth certificate for the girl named the parents of the stillborn as the parents of the girl.

All I can do is guess that the girl baby was abandoned. Then given to the sad parents right at the hospital.

How many times do we believe a birth certificate from the "olden days" and really not know what happened.

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Thanks for the comments! I did some additional research in WikiTree Help and the Style Guide. It does say one of the exceptions to using the name in the official record is "when the person is adopted as an infant and they never used their birth name.

In this case, the baby was around 8 months old when the second birth registration was filed.

Currently, I am leaning towards using Todeschi as the LNAB instead of Pearce. I have found no other records related to him that use the name Pearce. Of course, the next record I find is the 1930 Census after his mother married Albert.

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I think that is the way to go, unless a lawyer can chime in. It seems that the act of filing a new birth certificate is to clarify that the first one was incorrect and not valid.