The Enigma

The claim
In my novel, the protagonist lives under more than one name and more than one identity. The idea grew from my great-grandfather, Clyde Destin Higginbottham Flower, born in 1891, whose records don't agree on where he was born.

What my family told me
I was always told he was born on the Isle of Guernsey. A family memoir says his parents came from Guernsey soon after marrying, joined a wagon train bound for California, and both died at a ranch near Olancha, where a family named Flower raised him as their own.

What the record shows
His parents were both born on Guernsey: Hubert Higginbottham in 1861 (and he is still there in the 1881 census) and Alice Warry in 1866. In the 1910 census, as indexed, Clyde, 19, is a lodger in Los Angeles named Flower, born in England. On his 1915 marriage certificate he again gives England, for himself and for both parents. On his 1917-18 draft card he gives Pueblo, Colorado, and a birth date of February 16, 1891. The 1920 census says Colorado as well. After that he is Clyde Flower in every record, and his obituary names both names.

What I can't tell you
I don't know where he was born. "England" in 1910 and 1915 may simply mean the Channel Islands, since Channel Islanders were often recorded as English, but the shift to Colorado came in 1917, the year of the draft. I haven't found a record that proves a birth in either place, or that he naturalized. I also don't know when his parents died. The memoir says both died at the ranch, but a source in the family tree suggests his mother may have remarried in Oregon, and his marriage certificate gives his father's name as a Flower, which intentates that his mother possibly later married a Flower but this contradicts the memoir. Why the Flower name replaced his own is still open.

How I'm treating it

Documented: Hubert's birth in Guernsey (1861) and his 1881 census entry; Alice's birth in Guernsey (1866); the 1910 census; the 1915 marriage certificate; the draft card; the 1920 census; and the obituary naming both names.

Family testimony: Birth on Guernsey, the wagon train, the parents' deaths at the ranch, and the Flowers raising him, all from the family memoir.

Unknown: His birthplace, when his parents died and whether Alice remarried, and why he became a Flower.

Why this is in a novel
In the early 1900s you could say a name, it went on the census, and nobody checked. I live with a mild version myself: my American and Swiss passports agree on my name and birth date but differ on place, one showing where I was born and the other showing my family's Heimatort. Clyde's records helped me imagine how a man could live under more than one identity.

Open the files
FILE 001-B-002 // Life of Clyde Higginbottham / Flower