What is an "original" birth certificate anyway?

[Bleacher Creature]

I have no idea of the location of the actual piece of paper that my parents received when I was born. When I needed a birth certificate a few years ago, I sent the county where I was born the required documentation and received what looks like a real birth certificate. When my kids were born, what they received looked an awful lot like what I have -- despite the fact that I was born in a different state than them.

Seriously, I know that these people are crazy, but what do they really think is being hidden?

[wtbymark]

1. mine is in a file cabnet in Chaudfountain, Belgium

and I have an official french (belgique) translation.
Don't ask, long story lol

[provis99]

2. They are crazy. No documentation will satisfy them

Any original document that has been produced has been declared a forgery by these nutcases. Too bad they don't show the same enthusiasm for figuring out whether their man McCain, was born on American soil.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. They know nothing is being hidden

Obama's birth certificate. They just like to stir up their base.

[Lars39]

4. Maybe they want to study his footprints.

:shrug:

[MADem]

6. That would be a "hospital" birth certificate, as opposed to a state "certificate of live birth."

I think they want a xerox of the old "photostatic copy" that used to be the norm in halls of records.

Hawaii has gone to digitized records, though. If Grandma doesn't have the thing, it might not have been archived.

[Lars39]

7. Now I'll have to go hunt mine up and see what I've got. :^)

[MADem]

12. I have a hospital bc, with "the feet," as well as an old photostatic certificate, with raised seal,

but I haven't gotten the "new" certificates that so many states are going to.

The hospital one is no good for something like getting a passport. They want the CLB from the state.

[Milspec]

10. about 20 year ago hospitals stopped

doing the footprint thing as a form of identification, you have to ask the hospitals to provide them now as a "keepsake" (at a cost)

[joeglow3]

25. They are standard and free here

At least, as of 2 months ago.

[Cha]

5. I'm on my third copy that

my mom got for me in Denver, Colorado because the other two were lost with all the traveling and moving around I did in my life.

[LiberalFighter]

8. Ask them to provide their original birth certificate.

If they produce a hospital version have them attempt to get a drivers license or passport using it.
Most likely it won't have a notary seal or other witness by a county recorder or other authorized government agency.

If they produce the standard computerized version ask them why they don't have the original birth certificate.

[tammywammy]

9. Yep, the birth certificate that I have was a copy my mom got 7 years after I was born

It's good enough to get a passport. And the passport is good enough to show the Federal government that I'm a citizen.

[ksoze]

11. The birth certificate issue is a straw man for them to endlessly flog

since they can simply refute or not except any logic until hell freezes over. In other words, documents are photoshopped, civil servants are bribed, etc. This a empty suit story by the empty headed.

[Doctor_J]

13. it's something that's currently taking up 4 threads in GD:P

amazing what some DUers will fall for

[jberryhill]

20. No one is "falling for it"

It is something of an amusing thing to watch the birfers chasing their tales with their ever increasingly baroque theories, though.

For folks who enjoy discussing fringe political theories, this one is a gold mine of weird.

[Doctor_J]

29. We're up to 8 birther threads on page 1

Next on Geraldo - "Dems" who can't help propagate insane right wing memos

[jberryhill]

30. Expose, Debunk, Ridicule - those are quite different from 'propagate'

There is an ugly and violent underbelly of the population that is indeed propagating this stuff, which is why it is important to expose the nonsense for what it is.

It is of some currency today because of the hearing being held in the Cook case, which may result in a smackdown.

IMHO, the DUngeon would be a great place to dissect the birther claims.

Next on Oprah - "Finding inner peace and the ignore thread button"

[POAS]

14. They'd have a stroke looking at mine---

three name changes before I was 5!

[DRoseDARs]

15. My orignial birth cert was destroyed in a fire that decimated the hospital I was born in (Illinois).

No US citizenship for me. :(

[kestrel91316]

16. Original docs are kept on file and NOT released to anyone, hence the

whole "certified copy" monkey business. Certified copies are certified to be "true and correct", and are valid in any court in the country.

[and-justice-for-all]

17. In those morons case, one that says what they think it should...

however, in reality, it still says BORN IN HAWAII!

[WePurrsevere]

18. What it sounds like it means is that if one is adopted one couldn't be President

according to these idiots. As an adopted person I'm not legally able to have access to the original certificate they are carrying on about for Obama. All I have it a birth certificate and it has my adopted parents name on it and city/state I was born in... not my birth parents. What little other info I had was given to my parents orally and they wrote it down. If they were to make those other records a mandatory requirement there'd be a whole lot of folks who couldn't be President.

Quite honestly I don't think they'll be content with any proof because their fear, bigotry and stupid go to the bone. Jesus and Thomas Jefferson could come down on a cloud with angels all around them and say, "Yo idiots, Obama's very cool and is perfectly qualified to be President of the USA" and they'd still find a reason to deny that he is. The sad and annoying fact is that you just can't cure stupid and there isn't much more stupid then these "birthers".

[pnwmom]

19. In Hawaii, which has an all-electronic system, there is NO SUCH THING.

Hawaii put all its old records into electronic form in 2001. Since then, the only record of birth available is the "Certificate of Live Birth" which is printed off from electronic records.

Also, Hawaii has no long form and no short form. There is only one form, the "Certificate of Live Birth" that Obama has made fully available.

http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html

The state Department of Health no longer issues copies of paper birth certificates as was done in the past, said spokeswoman Janice Okubo.

The department only issues "certifications" of live births, and that is the "official birth certificate" issued by the state of Hawaii, she said.

And, it's only available in electronic form.

Okubo explained that the Health Department went paperless in 2001.

"At that time, all information for births from 1908 (on) was put into electronic files for consistent reporting," she said.

Information about births is transferred electronically from hospitals to the department.

"The electronic record of the birth is what (the Health Department) now keeps on file in order to provide same-day certified copies at our help window for most requests," Okubo said.

Asked for more information about the short-form versus long-form birth documents, Okubo said the Health Department "does not have a short-form or long-form certificate."

[Mz Pip]

21. Scratchings on a rock

in Kenya that has scribbles that look like an O.

Anything from the US is a conspiracy theory perpetrated by the evil Muslim socialist commie overlords who want to round all the good and righteorous Americans up and put them in relocation camps.

I think I hit all the main bullet points.

[AspenRose]

22. I would have a problem, since my birth certificate came from a country that no longer exists

West Germany

so I have one of those things my (American) parents got from the consulate - Report of Birth Abroad

And the certified, notarized copy of that was good enough to get me a passport

[Minimus]

23. Mine is the size of a credit card - laminated with a raised seal on the lamination -

I was born in 1964 in Charleston, SC.

Whenever I have had to present my birth certificate in the past it gets much scrutiny, supervisors are called, etc. It is very strange looking and I have never seen another like it.

[gauguin57]

24. I've got both. The tattered, faded "original" birth certificate is in my safe-deposit box.

But I was also issued copies, many years later, that look like the one Obama's campaign posted online. I needed a copy I could send away, years ago, for some procedure I can't even remember (it might have been for a visa to one of the former Soviet republics ... not sure). I think I also used a copy to get my original passport. Maybe my tattered "original" was missing at the time or something.

A friend of mine recently polled several of his siblings and some of his nieces and nephews, and NONE of them could produce an "original" birth certificate -- the one filled in in pen at the hospital. They all used copies issued by the state/county.

[Princess Turandot]

26. I have my 'original' bc or at least, the only thing that I can they are talking about..

It's a negative photostat which looks like a form and was filled out by hand and attested to by the doc who delivered me. No seal on it but it was the bc I used to get a passport years ago. (I'm a few years older than the President is.) It's of course nothing more than a curiosity piece now; my official bc is now one printed out/sealed by NYS which looks just like the one posted online for the President.

There's some additional info about the parents (place of birth/job/address/other births to the same mother) and that's about it. I'm not sure what they think it will tell them. Perhaps its the handwritten aspect of it which they are obsessed with. On the other hand, maybe they think knowing the hour of his birth will tell them something.;)

I guess they could use it to track down the doctor who delivered him, assuming s/he is still alive. If they learned the name, and discovered he was deceased, they would promptly accuse Obama of having arranged for his murder!

[vaberella]

27. I'm assuming the one given to you at birth. However, the gov. changes birth cert. regularly. n/t

[Puzzler]

28. I never heard the subject of original "original" birth cirtificates...

... being discussed before the Obama issue. Nobody cared.