Proof of Forgery
Florence Elizabeth's birth certificate offers compelling evidence that her brother Jay's supposed birth certificate is a forgery
This post has been amended to include the two images in the Handwriting samples section that did not go through on the original email distribution.
In order to test my hypothesis that Jay’s original birth certificate was removed on or around 1950 and replaced with a forgery that blended most of his real information with the name and father’s name of another person, I needed an appropriate control.
Luckily, Jay had a younger sister. Her name was Florence Elizabeth (not to be confused with his mother, Florence Marguerite).
Since “Aunt Florence” (Elizabeth) was family, verifying the information on her birth certificate would be easy.
So, like I did with Jay’s, I requested that the archive in New Jersey send me a scanned copy of his sister’s long form birth certificate.
About three weeks after I submitted the request, the same archivist who processed the request for Jay/Herbert’s birth certificate sent me Florence Elizabeth’s.
Although it does not provide smoking gun evidence malfeasance, it offers the strongest evidence to date in favor of the forgery hypothesis.
Breakdown of the Florence Elizabeth birth certificate
Immediately, a few things stand out on Florence’s birth certificate.
Where the Herbert Reed birth certificate is blurry, this one is very clear.
There are no smudge marks in the ink.
The stamped number, 797, is a bit higher, numerically, than the one on the Herbert Reed birth certificate (738).
There are not any numbers handwritten at the top of the page where on the Herbert Reed birth certificate “414” can be found written in different handwriting.
There is no address in the bottom right corner as was found on the Herbert Reed birth certificate.
“J. Herbert Reid” is listed as Florence Elizabeth’s father. Recall, this is precisely how he signed his name in Jay’s baby book. In this same field on what is allegedly Jay’s birth certificate (Herbert Reed), the father’s name is listed as “Herbert W”.
The family address on Florence’s birth certificate is different from Jay/Herbert’s, suggesting that the Reid family had moved since Jay was born.
Another small difference is the mother’s occupation. On the Herbert Reed birth certificate it is listed as “none”, whereas here it is listed as “H.W.”, which most likely stood for “housewife”.
The parents’ ages as well as the mother’s name and the eye treatment applied all are the same on both birth certificates.
The most important line of information is the number of all children in the marriage (2) and the number of children now living (2).
In order for the Herbert Reed birth certificate to be authentic and accurate, one of the following would have to be true:
Jay Herbert Reid (Sr.) married Florence Kehrl in 1914, but within three months they quickly divorced and she married a man named Herbert W. Reed (Sr.). They had a son named Herbert W. Reed Jr., but the marriage ended almost immediately after his birth. Florence then remarried Jay Reid and gave birth to a child who lived, but for whom there is no birth record. Then, in 1917, they had a second child, Florence Elizabeth.
There were multiple, unemployed Florence Kehrls born in or around 1888 who were living and procreating with men who had similar names in Newark, NJ between 1915 and 1917.
If those two options seem too far-fetched to believe, as I would assert is the case, then, because the Florence Elizabeth birth certificate matches precisely all other family-held records, we are left to conclude that the Herbert Reed birth certificate is not accurate and/or authentic.
The professional attendant
The biggest surprise with Florence Elizabeth’s birth certificate is the person who signed it: Carlyle (Carl) Edgar Sutphen Jr.
The son of a dress shirt manufacturer who patented at least one of his inventions, Carl Sutphen was born in 1871. That means he was 44 years-old when Jay was born. According to multiple U.S. and New Jersey census records, as well as his marriage certificate, Carl was a physician.
The signature field labels the signatory as a “professional attendant”, which I had assumed meant a clerk in the vital records office. That incorrect assumption has a major ramification - intuitively, a physician is likely to fill out a birth certificate more accurately then an ordinary clerk. Not only would the physician be more highly educated, but he would also know the family, having delivered the child.
And as Florence’s birth certificate demonstrates, the family must have had confidence in him, since he delivered both babies.
This discovery further reduces the likelihood that the discrepancies found on the Herbert Reed birth certificate are the result of simple, unintentional mistakes.
Who was Dr. Carl E. Sutphen?
Dr. Sutphen died in Olmsted, Minnesota - home of the Mayo Clinic - on March 7,1923 at the age of 51. This fact suggests he had the means and the connections necessary to pursue (potentially) lifesaving medical treatment at one of the country’s foremost hospitals.
Whatever afflicted Dr. Sutphen, there is a reason he went all the way to the Mayo Clinic for his care, as opposed to staying in Newark or seeing a physician in nearby New York City.
Around this time in Newark, there was another famous Dr. Sutphen.
Dr. T.Y. (for Theron Yeomans) Sutphen, born in 1844, was an ophthalmologist of some renown. He was cited in a report by the New Jersey Commission for the Blind in 1915.
He was also a member of the Essex County Medical Milk Committee, a fascinating history of which was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in the July-August 1972 edition of Bulletin of the History of Medicine.
Although I have not yet verified whether the Doctors Sutphen were related, the likelihood is that they were. And that connection may have provided Dr. Carl Sutphen more prominence in the medical community, as well as account for his seeking treatment at the Mayo Clinic in the early 1920s.
Dr. Carl Sutphen’s Veterans Bureau Master Index Card offers new insight into the address written on the Herbert Reed birth certificate:
Dr. Sutphen lived at 31 Roseville Ave. in Newark before Dr. Benjamin Furman.
So, the address of the man who signed the Herbert Reed birth certificate is written on that birth certificate, but not on Florence Elizabeth’s, whose birth certificate he also signed.
And that address appears to have housed one doctor after another, suggesting it was connected to a hospital or other major medical institution.
Although his father lived to age 81, Dr. Carl Sutphen’s death at a fairly young age began a string of such deaths among men in his family. His son, Kenneth, died at age 62 (in 1962), and his grandson, Kenneth Jr., died at age 61 (in 1983). This fact suggests a genetic component, which would rule out foul play and bad luck (like an accident).
Handwriting samples
Turning now to a comparison of the handwriting on the Herbert Reed and Florence Elizabeth birth certificates, note the differences in the signature and the omission of "NJ" in the suspected forgery (on top), as well as the address written in altogether different handwriting that does not appear on Florence's birth certificate:
The differences in "Herbert" and the omission of the father's last name are also notable. Further, the slant is different and the “t” in “Herbert” is completely different, looking more like a capital “S” in the top sample and a lower case “b” in the bottom:
Here is a comparison of the mother's name, listed correctly on both birth certificates:
“M” for “Marguerite” is included on top, but not below. Again, the slant (more aggressive on top) is different. Additionally, all instances of “e” and “r” are different
Finally, since both birth certificates were signed in July, we can compare the handwriting there. Note, especially, the major differences in the "u" and "y" in “July”):
Further, the year is included on Florence’s birth certificate, but not on Herbert Reed’s
Conclusions
At this point, I think we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Herbert Reed birth certificate is a forgery.
The combination of mismatched data and handwriting alone strains credulity. Then, when we add the fact that both birth certificates were completed by the same physician, who knew the family personally, it becomes all but impossible to believe that the inaccuracies found in the Herbert Reed birth certificate were due to mistakes.
Finally, the fact that Herbert W. Reed Jr. was a real person, who grew up less than 10 miles away from Jay and whose father was Herbert W. Reed Sr., removes any last bit of possibility that this was all a simple error.
With abundant evidence enabling us to reject the null hypothesis - that the Herbert Reed birth certificate was authentic, if not entirely accurate - we can now move on to proving who forged it, and why.