[Tishabet]

Using a fake name assembled of the names of the Beatles to protect the innocent here while also telling the tale.

My dad was the oldest of 4 kids who were all very close in age. When he was in high school he was accepted to West Point and had to get a copy of his birth certificate as part of joining. What he expected to see there was his own name, Paul George, and that he was the son of the late Colonel George who had died in combat when my dad was 10. Lo and behold the name of his father on the birth certificate was not Colonel George, but a completely different guy named John Paul Ringo. And to top it off, my dad's name on the birth certificate was not Paul George but John Paul Ringo Jr.

My dad confronted his mom about this and she claimed it was some sort of administrative mixup, that he was Paul George and that his dad was the deceased Colonel George. To make a long story short, there was no administrative mixup with the birth certificate: John Paul Ringo (Sr!) had been married to my grandmother and was indeed my dad's bio father and also the bio father of two of his siblings but not the youngest one who was the sole bio child of Colonel George. My grandma had in fact married John Paul Ringo Sr, had three kids with him including my dad, then divorced and married Colonel George and had a kid with him and from there on just pretended that Colonel George was the only husband and father for all time and all four kids were his.

Once this became clear my dad reached out to his bio dad, who lived in the same town, and was surprised to find that he recognized him as the guy who had come to his school to give him milk money, had visited him when he had been hospitalized, etc. My dad decided to adopt his legal name and so had to explain to everyone he knew (including my mom who he was dating at the time) that he was no longer Paul George but John Paul Ringo Jr. and that he would still go by "Paul" even though it was his middle name and not his first name. The rest of my dad's siblings adopted the "George" last name (the only last name they had ever known) so my dad's last name hasn't matched theirs ever since. My dad and one sibling reconciled with John Paul Ringo Sr and had a good relationship with him (far better than with their mom) from then on, the remaining bio kid of John Paul Ringo Sr refused to acknowledge his existnce but 50 years later met him for the first time at my wedding and grew close to him in the following years until he finally died at 100.