Obtaining Parent's Birth Certificate in NYC (home, cost, law)

[Dennis J. Dalton]

I would like to know how I can get my mother's birth certificate. She was born in NYC in 1918. I have her Death Certificate. I would to know what to do now?

[Wells5]

Originally Posted by Dennis J. Dalton

I would like to know how I can get my mother's birth certificate. She was born in NYC in 1918. I have her Death Certificate. I would to know what to do now?

I applied for my father's birth certificate about 20 years ago from the NYC Department of Health out of curiosity (he was born there in 1907). They would not issue an official birth certificate, but sent me a copy of his "birth record" instead. That document, filled out by the midwife, contained much more information than the official certificate. For one thing, I found out that he was not born on the day that he celebrated as his birthday. I doubt if you can get the city to issue an official birth certificate for your mother. See below.

Birth and Death Certificate Information

[Amisi]

Interesting. I was thinking of ordering my parents' birth certificates recently also. I wonder if there is a way to also get their parents' birth records? I'm almost positive my mother's parents were born here (not sure about my father's)

[BugsyPal]

Birth and death records are public *records* just as with court documents. This is enshrined into not only NYS law but pretty much all 50 states and the USC.

That being said obtaining an actual official copy of someone's BC or DC is another matter. Since those can be and often are used for various official purposes thus can assist in identity theft you probably won't be able to obtain.

As for the poster above whose father has a different birthdate than he celebrated or knows as his B-day, that is very common when home births were the norm instead of hospital. An infant may have been born on say 25 December somewhere on the Lower Eastside at home, but maybe there was a snow storm or for whatever reasons the parents waited until after the holidays to register the birth. That kid may now have a BD of January 3rd as his "official" because that is when it was registered and the BC paperwork completed.

The other common enough reason for "moving" a BD was to hide a "May-December" birth. That is the couple were married in May and the child born in December seven months later. People had fingers/could count! *LOL* So to remove any potential stain from a forced marriage due to the bride being with child the birth date was *moved* to a few months later. This made it look as if the newly married wife became with child during the first few weeks of marriage.

Oh and the other reason for delaying registering a birth is finances. Going back to England/UK of old and elsewhere it cost a small fee to register a birth either with the church or local official. Given many households were often in hard up circumstances and high infant mortality rates many would wait several days or even weeks to see if the newly born infant thrived before paying to register the birth. If the child and or mother died during birth or shortly afterwards you would see a recorded death such as "Emily Smith & child" with the not named infant buried with its mother sort of as a twofer.