How was I born on the wrong day?

[PossiblyDreaming]

I’ve always thought I was born on a Sunday which always made me feel very smug as a child whenever I saw that nursery rhyme that goes “Monday’s child is fair of face” etc until it gets to Sunday’s child and says how much better kids born on a Sunday are.

Anyway, I was recently filling out some online form where I had to put in my date of birth and it came up on a calendar showing that actually I was born on a Monday. I double checked it with another calendar and, yes, I was definitely born on a Monday. I didn’t think much of it but text my mum to tell her as I thought it was mildly amusing that she’s forgotten when I was born.

Except my mum is 100% adamant that I was born on a Sunday. She remembers it specifically as she made my dad run to the church to drag my grandparents out so that they could watch my brother while he drove her to hospital. My grandparents only ever went to church on a Sunday and my dad was a teacher so if it had been a weekday he wouldn’t have been at home when my mum went into labour. It was mid October so wouldn’t have been a bank holiday. It wasn’t a long labour, I was born a couple of hours later so it wasn’t like my mum was labouring overnight and I was born the next day or anything.

My mum is 70 and fully compos mentis but she can’t get my dad or her parents to corroborate as they’re dead. She is absolutely adamant that I was born on Sunday and now thinks that my birthday was recorded incorrectly and it’s actually the day before the day that I’ve celebrated all my life 😂. I’ve got the original copy of my birth certificate and it says the date that I’ve always thought it was.

I know it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things but it’s really odd. Is there any really obvious way that I’m missing that might confirm either way? Do I now celebrate my birthday the day before even though all my public records show it as being the next day?

My grandads father did that! He was born on the 7th of Feb but told the registrar the 8th 😂

Another very unlikely possibility- did they put the right year? A year later and the same date would have been a Monday? 😳

My grandmother always used to say of my father, “Monday’s child is fair of face, and that’s true of your father.” He subsequently discovered that for the year he was born, the date given on his birth certificate was actually a Tuesday. As he was born at home and his birth wasn’t registered until a couple of weeks later, I suspect my grandfather might have made a mistake!

Can you check through hospital records I think it’s quite important that you find out to be honest, there must be some way of check img surely! 🤔 good luck

Think yourself lucky. Myself and both my kids are Wednesday!

My Nan (although she would have been 103 now!) had 2 birthdays. You only had a certain number of days to register the birth and they had gone past that. They didn't want to get into trouble so they said she was born a day later! She always knew that though and it definitely sounds like yours is a recording error

Might be an error. On the other hand at age 70 our memories of things that happened 30 or 40 years ago can often be wrong even when we have 'all our marbles'. I know. I am 69. Sometimes, in discussion it turns out that my memories which I've had for years and years are a bit faulty. In essence 99% correct, but on a different day or a different setting or something. That's a common thing.

So it is perfectly possible your Mother is misremembering the 'finer' details. I'm not suggesting she isn't anything other than totally capable - just mistaken. Maybe your Grandparents were at church at a church meeting in the evening ( that was a frequent occurence once upon a time) or maybe they were there for a group meeting on the Moday?

In the UK at least you are given a card to take to the Registry Office. I think it is highly likely that your birth certificate is correct and the DATE you were born is actually correct - just the day has become confused somewhere.

I'm on Team Data Entry Error here. My grandmother's father was drunk when he registered her birth and got the date wrong by a day, and also spelled her name wrong. (Not suggesting your parents were drunk when they registered you! Just that these things happen.)

I was born 52 years ago today..which was both a Sunday and Mothers Day. Very auspicious 🤣

Ha - I’ve got a good friend whose dad did this (he had been out “celebrating” before nipping out of the pub to register the birth). She still feels she has to explain the strange spelling of a quite normal name. Parents marriage didn’t last much longer as it was apparently indicative of his general crapness.

I’ve spelled my middle name a certain way all my life(I’m 50) and only relatively recently realised it’s not the standard spelling. In fact I can’t find any record a my spelling. I asked my Dad who told me he got it wrong at the registration so they just went with it!

I've just checked all my kids as I know my boys were born on Mondays and the calendar backed me up. I then checked my daughter's DOB and I thought the calendar was wrong. Turns out it just isn't as concrete in my mind.

She might have broken her waters earlier but not have started her labour?

I think it's highly unlikely that the birth certificate is wrong.

She's missing something either the length of labour, reason they were at the church, could have been an evening service or a Monday event of some description - coffee morning, indoor bowls, or something, could she have called your DDad home from work first before sending him for them.

To my horror I registered the death of a close relative wrongly. They died at a few moments past midnight, but to me it still seemed as if it was the night before. I am sure when I told friends/relatives later that day, that they had died I would have said "last night" too. In the emotion of it all, I gave the wrong date to the registrar and no-one, or no paperwork corrected that and the death certificate was issued a day out. It was only a year or so later I realised and have always felt bad about it since then.

I know from doing my family history research that stories that memories are strange things. It is entirely possible that your mum's memories of your birth have been mixed up with something else - no reflection on her of course, but I've had people being adamant about things happening that are impossible.

My date of birth was wrong on my passport for years - this was when as a child you went on your parents, my Dad got it wrong and it wasn’t checked. I think could have easily registered the wrong date, or hospital didn’t register until the Monday.

My mum always says I was born on Easter Sunday but I found out one year that's not true, it was the Sunday before. My birthday has fallen on Easter Sunday in the past so that coupled with how close it was, she must have created a false memory. Whenever she brings it up I just go along with it because she loves saying I was her beautiful Easter baby

@PossiblyDreaming are you in the UK? Did your mum get a red book as she left the hospital? Not sure how long they’ve been around for but my brother is 34 and he had one. I think they had all the dates and details in. How are you feeling about your possible revelation? I’d be a bit sad I think 🥺

Sometimes registrars do get it wrong. We had a significant date registered as the thirteeth, such an ambiguous typo to render the document meaningless.
Hope you get to the bottom of your fascinating mystery!

I had a similar experience, but in my case the date we'd been celebrating was actually wrong. When I was 14, a magazine published a calendar showing the day of the week for every date (this was way before internet or digital calendars) My birthday was shown as being a Saturday, my mum said I was born on a Friday. My mum looked it up in my grandfather's old diary for that year, assuming it would show that the 4th was in fact a Friday. Instead, we found the entry for my birth on the 3rd. Then we found my birth certificate and that said the 3rd. This was about 50 years ago, when foreign holidays were much rarer, so I'd never had a passport, and schools didn't ask for proof of your date of birth back then, so we'd never actually checked my birth certificate. My grandfather's diary for the next year was missing and the year after that my birthday was shown as the 4th, so we're not sure when the mistake was made. It was rather embarrassing having to tell the school my birth date was wrong!

I'm a Wednesday child. I wish my mother had either pushed me out a few hours sooner or kept me in for another 20 hours or so. Thanks for nothing, DM.

I've just dug out my own birth certificate to check. I'm Scottish and it does have the time I was born (1:30am).

I was the person who said earlier that my date of birth was on my birth certificate. I was born in Scotland, so it sounds like it may have been a Scottish thing.

Glitch in the matrix