A woman was left floored after she checked her birth certificate for the first time in 15 years and noticed one detail she’d never seen before – and even her mum didn’t know
Your birth certificate is supposed to be an accurate account of your personal information at the time of your birth. It records who your birth parents are, what your legal name is, your sex at birth, and how much you weighed. A birth certificate is a legal document that can be used to prove who you are, but for most of us, the document stays in a drawer in our parents’ house and never gets looked at.
But one woman who decided to look at her birth certificate has said she wishes she’d studied it in more detail sooner, because she made a “wild” discovery that she’d never noticed before. Ruby Jade, 24, posted a video on TikTok in which she said she hadn’t looked at her birth certificate in “15 years”, so she thought she’d check it out.
And when she did, she found an “insane typo” that was so wild it left her feeling “very mad”, especially as her parents had never noticed it either, so it had gone unchecked for over two decades.
Ruby began her video by showing followers her brother’s birth certificate, which correctly listed that he weighed 3.650kg when he was born. But she then asked followers to guess what her certificate said in relation to her weight.
When she held up her birth certificate, it was documented that she weighed a staggering 2,200kg – an impossible feat considering the Guinness World Record for the heaviest baby was set in 1879 when Anna Haining Bates gave birth to a boy weighing 9.98kg.
Speaking about the typo, Ruby told Newsweek: “It was the first time I had noticed the mistake. I am surprised my mom didn’t notice, as a typical Virgo, she’s usually first to pick up on things like that. But I imagine she was arguably distracted by recent events.”
Although the mistake took her by surprise, Ruby said she found it “funny” and knew she had to share it with her followers on social media. The clip has since gone viral, amassing over 370,000 views and far surpassing any other video Ruby has posted.
She added: “I just felt like talking about it. I only post when I want to on here. I’ve been trying to grow my graphic design business with zero success on TikTok. I didn’t really expect it to get more attention than my other videos.”
Commenters on the woman’s video were quick to share their own experiences with birth certificate errors and other mishaps with important documents.
One person said: “My father has gone by Niall his whole life … even his mom called him Niall. While getting his first passport at 50, we found out his name is actually Neil, and we suspect it has something to do with having thick Irish accents.”
Another added: “An important document of mine…lists my date of birth in the year 1086.”
A third posted: “My middle name is K. Something in my papers got stuffed up between the ages of 2 and 15, where one of my parents entered my middle initial instead of my middle name, so legally my middle name is just K.”
Reflecting on the video’s popularity, Ruby put its success down to it being so relatable for so many people, and hilarious for others to read all the comments.
She said: “I believe it got attention because lots of people were quick to comment with similar stories, typos and errors in their own birth certificates/IDs, etc., which I was surprised to hear and enjoyed reading. Many comments recounted experiences which were much funnier or tragic I suppose than mine.”
