A man has been left scratching his head after discovering his grandad 'never existed' after he passed away. He explained how his grandad was married for over 50 years and had 'multiple children' - but still 'wasn't registered as a person'.
Taking to Reddit, the grandson said: "When my grandfather passed away we discovered that he did not exist. His name was not in any government registry.
"He was a normal citizen, paid taxes, had a license and everything. He lived a long life, married to my grandmother for over 50 years, had multiple children, everything normal."
Despite trying to get to the bottom of things, the family hasn't been able to uncover his 'true' identity.
"Still to now, no one knows who he really was and why he had a false name," he added. "Our only guess is he was given a new identity by the government which allowed all these somehow."
While most users speculated as to why he wasn't on the government records, others shared stories about their own family secrets.
One user said: "Depending on how old he was (and where he was born), he might have been registered but never even got a birth certificate.
"That's the kind of thing that happened to my Papa's family in Jim Crow South.
"One of his siblings didn't have a birth certificate, and his birth certificate only said 'One male born to [great grandma]' I'm not sure, but I don't think it even had the date."
Another user added: "My paternal grandmother was born at home in 1918, the local doctor didn't register her birth with the county.
"She had to rely on her handwritten adoption paperwork, the US Census and her baptismal certificate to obtain a SSN.
"Her paternal grandparents adopted her from her widowed mother who didn't want to be held down by a baby.
"Other relatives used the US Census and family statements to obtain late registered birth certificates."
A third user said: "I was born in the mid 90s, and the hospital never filed for my birth certificate.
"All they gave my parents was a 'birth registration application'. For my older siblings, they took care of everything at the hospital. That made for an interesting experience at the DNV at 15."
One more user added: "My grandfather's legal birthday was two days after his actual birth because they lived in the mountains of rural Arkansas and that’s how long it took his dad to go down and get the paper work filled out, this was back in the 1920s."
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