Here A Clark, There A Clark

There are two birth entries for apparently the same Clark Sargent in Ancestry.com's  Vermont, Vital Records, 1720-1908. The cards are shown below in this post. 

The details on the cards are consistent except for the supposed location of the birth and the fact that the card from Leicester indicates a registration year of 1809, three years after the birth. The names of parents and the mother's residence is the same. The clerk from Leicester makes a note about the recording date of the birth, perhaps hinting that it did not actually take place in his jurisdiction.

These cards are not the original records. They were created by the town clerks and sent to the State of Vermont. My next step is to try and obtain the actual town records from which these cards were created. That may explain the duplicate nature of the cards.

It may be that the family moved between 1806 and 1809 and did not believe that Clark's birth was actually recorded. Since I may be able to obtain additional information from the town clerk, it's best to avoid speculation at this point.

But, it is always important to know exactly how the information obtained came into existence.

One person cannot be born in two places.