The classic trick for starting a same-age fake identity was to go to a local cemetery and look at the small-headstone kids’ graves until you find someone born around the same year as you so you fit the age and then go get their birth certificate, because building out the identity from there will use that but not like, any affadavit that there’s never been a death certificate for that person.

This was in a world of thinner-documented lives, probably more obstacles in a digital era.