My estranted parents are moving, and my mother emailed me that she has “some important papers” that she didn’t want to either mail to me or leave at my home. I know she’s doing this to force my hand about not wanting to see them. I can’t think what else she has besides by birth certificate. I have my own passport - expired, because I’m a dingus - and my own Social Security card. Think I’m forgetting anything?
And the most important question: what would be the ramifications if I never got my mitts on my own birth certificate? Is it significant in any way that I was born in a different country?
I can’t imagine not wanting to have one’s own birth certificate easily accessible. I don’t recall the last time I needed mine, but at this very moment, it’s in a folder about 18" from where I’m sitting, and if I need it, I’ve got it.
Altho I always thought having to present a birth certificate was kind of silly. I’m no longer 6 lbs 8 oz…
I’ve been ok without mine so far. Nobody’s asked me to prove that I was born. Just where I currently live, which isn’t where I was born. Also, who I currently am, which is established by a myriad of other ways.
Birth certificates lose their usefulness after the child is old enough to establish his own identity.
Actually, since birth certs don’t have genetic markers on them for comparison to the child in question, there’s really not much they’re good for. Baby footprints? Come on…
if you were born in the U.S., you can almost always get a copy of your birth certificate if you don’t have the original. I don’t know where you were born or what the procedures are there but that certainly complicates things.
I can’t think of any reason why you would need a birth certificate if you have a passport. A passport is one of the only forms of ID that can stand alone for id verification for things like employment or any other practical matter. Your is expired but an expired one can be renewed just by filling out the application, paying the fee, and mailing in the old one if it has expired in the past few years (5 is the limit I believe).
You can keep this from ever presenting a problem by keeping your passport valid.
if you were born in the U.S., you can almost always get a copy of your birth certificate if you don’t have the original. I don’t know where you were born or what the procedures are there but that certainly complicates things.
I can’t think of any reason why you would need a birth certificate if you have a passport. A passport is one of the only forms of ID that can stand alone for id verification for things like employment or any other practical matter. A birth certificate requires secondary id to be presented as well. Your is expired but an expired one can be renewed just by filling out the application, paying the fee, and mailing in the old one if it has expired in the past few years (5 is the limit I believe).
You can keep this from ever presenting a problem by keeping your passport valid.
As a passport agent, I discovered that the vast majority of my customers believed that cute little piece of paper from the hospital is an official birth certificate. It is not. Your state (or county or city) government responsible for vital statistics (birth, marriage, divorce, etc.) records is the outfit that provides the official birth certificate.
One simple reason: to prove to a potential employer you are eligible to work in the USA. Yeah, yeah, you have an expired passport. But it’s expired. A potential employer cannot accept expired documents. Sure, you can solve that problem by getting your passport renewed.
Or just use your birth certificate. As other have said, you can apply for a copy of your birth certificate. But in all likelihood, that still requires additional documentation to prove who you are, and if you are foreign-born, the rules for obtaining a copy might be a royal pain.
If your estrangement is that strong, start the process for obtaining a copy of your birth certificate right now. You might find the temporary pain of seeing your parents much less of a hassle than getting a copy of your foreign birth certificate.
Assuming you were born in the United States, your original birth certificate is on file at a state. county, or local registrar’s office. Your mother, at most, has a certified copy. You can order your own certified copy, usually for around $5 to $20 which is just as good as her certified copy.
If you were born outside of the United States or your birth was not registered or some other unusual circumstances surround your birth, then your mother might have an original or hard-to-find document that you might need someday.
If you are in the United States, when you apply for Social Security or Medicare benefits, they are going to want to see your birth certificate (or some other combination of funky old documents). If you ever move out of state, they are probably going to want to see it to issue you a new drivers license or state ID card. And you will need one to get a US passport.
I know it seems silly, but with all the political hysteria about illegal aliens, a birth certificate is becoming a nuisance that you have to deal with and I’m sure that as time passes it will be required in more and more places.
Your mother might also have other papers. For example, if you are Catholic and want to be married in a Church, it would be handy to have your baptismal certificate.
Oops I’m sorry I missed the part about your being born in another country.
It might not be easy to find the right place to get a copy if you need it in the future, depending on the government bureaucracy that’s in place where you were born.
Here’s a question. Is it possible to transfer your birth certificate to a different jurisdiction? For example, if you were born in Maine but have lived in California for the past 30 years, can you get your birth certificate refiled in California (but still listed as being born in Maine) so that you can obtain copies at your local government office rather than mailing away for them across the country?
here in France you need your birth certificat constantly… for any official papers I have to do for my kids school for example they want his and my birth-certificate
same to get a passport from the german embassy or an ID card from the french gov.
you can get a copy of the birthcertificate in the town you were born; as mentioned before, often by email these days
You need a birth cert to apply for Social Security (start getting benefits) or to get a passport, I think. If you have a passport, that suffices for a Social Security app.
I was able to get mine and my son’s via mail. I ordered it online. I think I paid $40 both times. It was easy. I needed my SSN (if that) and had to sign something.
If you are a US citizen by virtue of being born abroad to American parents then you also need a copy of the Consular Report of Birth Abroad. Arguably it is more important than the birth certificate.
Nope, my parents naturalized when I was a kid. (They were citizens of the country of my birth at the time of my celebrated arrival onto this planet.) Thanks for the SS benefits info - that’s exactly the kind of stuff I’m trying to learn.
(I didn’t need my birth certificate the last time I applied for a passport … )
