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The available data points indicate Obama was 10 in 3 different years. As far as I know, he could only be 10 in two different years. 1969 Christmas season: The Scott Inoue 3rd Grade picture

The timeline issues are significant in identifying who he really is. But this isn't the professional way to approach the question.

You need to start with the dates and places where you know where he is or was--Christmas 1969 and the third grade are almost certainly accurate--you know he was there on that date.

You need to be careful with the class pictures. It looks to me as though the Kindergarten picture in Hawaii is almost certainly fake--he wasn't there. That's one of those places where the creator of the legend though he needed to be in Hawaii at that point and he was not.

With respect to the school year dates, you need to know when the school year starts and how long it lasts. It appears that the schools in Indonesia ran on a calendar year, not a September start year.

Application of those two propositions will reconcile some of the inconsistencies but not all of them.

Then, in looking at the school and age timeline questions, you have to be struck by the proposition that every year, he is one of the largest and most mature kids in his class until he gets out to the 20-21 year age bracket where the rest of the kids have caught up with him--then, he is 6'1" which is 2.8" above average height but not the six or eight inches you see in the younger classes.

That isn't conclusive either but it suggests the August 4, 1961 date may not be his in fact birthday.

Another issue you need to understand in looking at the dates--apparently the Moslems have a little different view about birth dates. So we need to remember that we call birth the date of delivery; the date the umbilical cord is cut. And when we calculate age and birthday's, that is the date we are talking about.

The Chinese and some Moslem cults count age from the conception date. I believe that some belief systems use what they want to believe is a real calculated conception date. In the modern world, in China, the system in use assumes a child is a year old three months after the delivery date.

I believe it is almost certain on the current record that zero is in fact the Bar-i Malick Shabazz who has been identified. On that basis (and on the basis of other facts not presently in the record) I also accept the identification of Malcolm X (MX) as his father.

The October 1959 date identified as a birth date by Trowbridge is off Social Security records which in turn are prepared from the initial filing--a form filled out by the applicant which is not authenticated in any way.

So in 1973 when zero filled this form out, he had an incentive to add to his record age--work permit issues about what kind of job he could have; driver's learning permit; etc.

Note that Trowbridge characterizes the October 59 date as a "conception" date. It is not likely that she would have used that word inadvertently which in turn implies that she thinks it is not a birth date in the sense of delivery.

You do not know however whether Trowbridge's word reflects additional knowledge or speculation. She has used a baby picture when he was about 4-6 months old as a February 1962 date. Obviously, the apparent 4-6 months is not reconcilable with a true birth in October 59 which would have made him three years and three months in the picture.

So her use of the word "conception" may well simply reflect her recognition that the two are not reconcilable and an attempt to narrow the gap. October 28, 1959 conception would be a birth date in August of 60 which still is not reconcilable with the picture if February of 62 is a valid date for the date the picture was taken which it may not be.

The picture was published in April of 62; makeup of the magazine would have been March; the picture could have been retained by MX from some earlier date and delivered to the magazine--or it may be accurately dated.

However the picture, at least in my view, establishes that he was born no later than August 4, 1961 because by the makeup date in February or March 62, he was 4-6 months old.

I would also say that Trowbridge's identification of the woman's neck in the picture is inconclusive. Again she may have independent sources that confirm her view but I doubt it. And I do not think the identification is accurate.

The ultimate remaining issue is the question of the place of his birth. Nothing in Trowbridge's material or anything else establishes that fact. If the SS-5 in fact appears, it may or may not give some clue to the place of birth. But at this point, we have a pretty good idea of what his father's name was; a fairly strong suggestion about what name was pinned on him at birth. There are a couple of other facts that would bear on the place of his birth that are not yet on the record.