The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-11-12
KEEP A FAMILY RECORD.
DtfacuIty Often Even With it to Prove
 One's Identity.

| EfNNGWErY OHtGm nNCM Whta " eS II AUN'
 One's Identity.
 New York world.
 l Paradoxical as it may seem, the mos difficult thing to prove In court oi | law is who you are. It is simple | matter if you have still plenty of rel, | atives of an older generation, but sup | pose your parents and uncles and aunti | are dead, it becomes well-nigh impos- sibIe. As a matter of fact. your know l ledge of your identity is absolutely hearsay. You know your father and mother called you son and to that fact YOU may testify if the question of your identity should ever come before fudge and jury. But the testimony goes before the jury with the warning from the judge that 1t is 9nly hearsay, for you have no personal Knowledge or the matter.
 Ohicial town or parish records are valuable. but by no means conclusive. Suppose you are John Smith, son of Robert and Mary Smith, born at AL baily on August 1. 1885. The record of births in the bureau of vital statistics at Albany will prove that a son named John was born to Robert and Mary Smith on that date; the register of the church may prove that John, son of Robert and Mary Smith, was baptized on a certsin date, but they do not prove that yoaf are the John Smith of whom these are records.
 To establish the connection between you and the person mentioned in the records. in other words, to prove your own identity is the difficulty. If your mother is alive she can do it: if any relative who has known you since you were born Is alive he can do 1t.
 The successive suits for the estate of A T. Stewart failed on such grounds as these. The plaintiffs, cousins of the late Mrs. Stewart, were unable to prove their relationship. It was nec- essary .n one of these cases that a man should prove his late father and A T. Stewart to have been brothers, but he had no personal knowledge of the matter: he had heard his father in Ireland refer to A. T. Stewart as his brother. but the court would not let him testify even to mat, and as the defendants denied the relationship the case fell to the ground.
 The identity of a person becomes even harder of proof after he is dead. Tn the Royal Arcanum there are sew | eral hundred thousands dollars of death benefits tied up because of the | inability of heirs to prove that the | insured man is dead.
 l Very often 1t is necessary to success | in litigation over an estate to prove mol | only who were your parents. but who were your grandparents. Family Bi.
 bIes, with the records therein. help out in this. but are not at all conclusive Birth and marriage certificates are ac' | cepted as corroborative, but 1t requires quite a mass of such matter, together
 with at least some witnesses who car
 testify of their own personal knowi l edge, before a court will accept suci
 fact as proved to its satisfaction. All of this illustrates the great valu,
 of keeping family records, for. these
 while not conclusive, are strong cor
 roborative evidence of identity. espe
 cialFy if the handwriting of the success
 sive heads of the family In which tn,
 entries are made can be proved, whicl l is generally fairly easy. Many a grea
 estate has been lost to its rightfu | owners solely because of their inabilit, to prove who they were.