Talk:Norman Chaney

message: This article has been renamed from Norman "Chubby" Chaney to Norman Chaney as the result of a move request. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Plasticspork (talk • contribs) 19:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Move request

message: Please discontinue edit warring and (continue to) discuss your edits on this talk page. It sounds like both of you could use a thorough reading of WP:RS and WP:V. If you need outside help, perhaps post to WT:ACTOR. tedder (talk) 08:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  edit warring 

message: I have a copy of Norman Myers Chaney's death certificate from the City of Baltimore which gives his date of birth as November 1, 1914. It's a public record and easily attainable through the Maryland State Archives. The certificate number is F-24460. Also, an Ancestry check of the 1920 census (before he went to Hollywood and his family apparently decided to shave a few years of his age) will confirm that he was 5 years old in January of 1920. I'd be happy to post an image of the death certificate if someone would be kind enough to tell me how! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Collibosher150 (talk • contribs) 14:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: A page showing a copy of the death certificate is linked above, and a direct link to the scanned image is here. It clearly gives the date of birth as "Nov 1 - 1914". It seems to me that this a more reliable source Maltin and Bann's book. Also, that "the vast majority of websites where he's mentioned" support the date in the book is not very strong evidence, as their source is likely to be that book (or websites which in turn used the book as a source) since that book seems to be the principal published source about Chaney. In addition to this, a 1930 census search gives a Norman M Chaney of Baltimore, Maryland, born "about 1914", and no other Norman M Chaney anywhere in Maryland, and no other Norman Chaney in Maryland that could possibly be him. Exactly the same result is confirmed by a similar search for the 1920 census. Of course it would be nice to have an exact date, but as corroboration for the death certificate date these two searches seem fairly persuasive. The likelihood of an error many decades later by the authors of a book is far greater than the likelihood that a two year old should have been listed on a census as five years old, let alone that the same child when twelve should be listed as 15. When this dispute first started it was reasonable to say that the 1914 date was unsourced, but that is no longer so. It seems that the 1914 date is now much more likely, and much more reliably sourced too. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:05, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The 1918 information was re-added, and I removed it per the discussion above. I cannot find any sources other than IMDb which state that he was born in 1918, and IMDb is not noted for accuracy. Reaper Eternal (talk) 22:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Allmovie also has the 1918 date. Keith D (talk) 22:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: And I just found two more conflicting sources! Webster's Online Dictionary affirms the January 18, 1918 date , but the Maryland State Archives affirms the November 1, 1914 date . Reaper Eternal (talk) 23:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The New York Daily News believes in the 1914 date as well. It mentions that he died at 22 years old, and since it was 1936 when he died, he was born in 1914.  Reaper Eternal (talk) 23:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Death certificate

message: I removed the following sentence, "Chaney won his spot in "Our Gang" in a nationwide talent contest to replace Cobb, who later said of his successor,"and collapsed the paragraph containing that sentence into the one before it.  The sentence was redundant; the last sentences in the previous paragraph made the same statements.  More importantly, as it was written, the sentence I removed was attributed to two people: Joe Cobb, at the head of the sentence; Robert McGowan at the tail of the sentence.  I don't have the book so I'm just guessing McGowan made the statement.
I also rewrote the sentence about the slow burn.Uncle Vince 21:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Unclear statement