If she was adopted by a step parent (or in any way adopted), she would have likely been issued a supplemental birth certificate with her new name and parents. My experience in tracking down docs has been that birth certificates for persons born before about 1950 seem to all be stored with their respective state's vital statistics, and not with the individual ciry/county/parish. Have you checked with Louisiana's vital statistics to see how you can go about getting her birth certificate or similar document verifying her name and DOB?

Do you know when her SSN was first issued? If it was issued prior to her marriage, that could potentially help you track down her last name.

Hooti Hound Ag said:

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This is amazing. I have her marriage certificate. So this should help!

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We Catholics keep great records.

Not sure what to tell you, except Abbeyville is the parish (county) seat, and Saint Mary Magdalen is probably the biggest/oldest church there. So a lot of people from smaller surrounding farms and communities would've gone there for major sacraments and stuff. I found some ancestors buried out back behind the church!

I could prowl around newspapers.com, but it looks like Not a Bot already did.

Do you have the full access subscription to Ancestry.com?

Dear diary:

My grandmother was born in 1879 in Louisiana. She looked like she was 100% Native American. She had no birth certificate. Could not read or write her name….signed her name with an X. Could remember the Indians coming to their cabin and making her mother cook turtles for them.

Used to insist on getting dressed up to watch The Lone Ranger on our early TV as she refused to believe the people on the screen couldn't see her watching them.

She had my dad when she was 44….my dad was 43 when I was born. I'm only 58 and had an uncle (not great uncle) who fought in the Spanish American war….and an uncle killed in an army air corps plane crash in 1928. Dad parachuted into Normandy on D-day.

Is her name Miriam?

Found the birth certificate. Churches were huge help. Found baptism record with her birth name in Basile LA.

Now hopefully I can get this TX ID wrapped up for good

Really weird coincidence that another woman in town with your great-grandmother's name died when your grandmother was 8 (right at the time of the adoption/name change). I was going down the path of soap opera level shenanigans of stolen identities, coverups of an unwed teenage pregnancy, etc.

Glad I was busy yesterday and didn't try to go down that path.

Hooti Hound Ag said:

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Found the birth certificate. Churches were huge help. Found baptism record with her birth name in Basile LA.

Now hopefully I can get this TX ID wrapped up for good

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Wow.

TexAgs really does know stuff.

That comment from your grandpa is hilarious too.