Can mistakes be made on birth certificates ?
Absolutely. Mistakes happen all the time. My surname was changed in America and there have been many instances in which members of my family have been subjected to misspellings of our surname causing them to be confused with a family which has a similar surname. My aunt never paid much attention to her birth certificate until at the age of 65 she decided to travel abroad and the passport office pointed out that the maiden name she put on the application did not match her birth certificate; a mistake which happened way back in 1934! Handwriting is also sloppy at times. If your nan’s maiden surname was Farly I can easily imagine how a small case cursive E could look like a small case cursive L and vice versa once sloppy handwriting comes along. A variation between Rudolph and Rudolf is not that great as they are pronounced the same. In that case the person filling out the birth certificate could have written Rudolph when the family always intended it to be Rudolf. Also people sometimes d
