A good example of the point I am making is the case of my application for Social Security benefits: my baptismal Certificate, made out by the Reverend Fred Buckwalter, Methodist Minister at Emerado, N.D. , and witnessed by Mae Crawford, my Day School and Sunday School teacher for four years; and Dorothy Burns, the Sunday School Superintendent of my younger years in the Emerado Methodist Church -- this document was so poorly drawn, and had so many scratched-out errors and corrections on it, that the Social Security Office would not accept it as proof of my birthdate. This Certificate had my middle name spelled incorrectly and my mother's nickname, Ellie, was used in place of her true name, Ella. "What to do?" "You might try the census bureau." Result: my 1900 census record read as follows "Seeverth, Arthur. Son of G.H. and Ellen Seeverth. Born December 1897. Chester Township, county of Grand Forks, North Dakota." (The errors in this document are italicized.) My 1910 census record was a little more accurate, but still essentially incorrect: "Seebert, Arthur. Son of George and Elen Seebert. Age 12. Chester Township, Grand Forks County, North Dakota." (The errors are italicized.) Could this be me? Maybe it was, and maybe it was not. The Social Security office said: "No, it was not." They suggested that I turn to the office of the County Superintendent of Schools in Grand Forks County. Fortunately the County Court House had never burned down, and the record of my entrance into the first grade, carefully and accurately recorded by my good teacher, Mae Crawford, identified me as the Arthur W. Seebart who was born December 17, 1896. Hoorah!

Entry for August Ziebarth in 1880 census.

Spelling of the Turtle River (ND) Ziebarths (Seebarts) Name
Ella Henrietta Seebart, my mother, stated that the parents of my father, George Henry Seebart, signed their names as Charleya August and Louisa Ziebarth when they homesteaded on the Turtle River near Grand Forks, N.D. My brother Ed states that Uncle Fred, my father's youngest brother, declared to him: "Dad spelled his name Zeebert." However all of the evidence contradicts this statement. There is no way to explain the discrepancy excepting that one gets to be 92 years of age, the memory sometimes fails one. Incontrovertible proof is presented below:

Cousin Emma (Mrs. Verle Shortle), who was a child of Charles and Matilda Koehler, had in her possession, many years after the death of Grandfather August, an account book or note book in which Grandfather August kept his records; and in this book his signature appears as follows (note that he combines his "t" and "h"):

A copy of Charleya August Ziebarth's signature. The t and h are combined. The Ziebarth name descends fromSibbert,which originated in the area of Northern Germany. According to Hans Bahlow's Deutsches Namenlexicon (Dictionary of German Names), the name means "glorious victory" ("sieg-glänzend"). Other common variations are Zieboldt, Zieberts, Sibbern and Siebert.