I recently learned that Michael Jackson was born at 7:33PM on the day that he was born, and this was in 1958. However, I know many people who were born after 1958, yet their birth certificates don’t have a specific time of birth listed. I was wondering when it started to become a thing to list the time. Is it something that is required by law to be listed nowadays?
There’s a regular birth certificate that most people get and may not list the time of birth and a long form certificate that’s much more detailed and usually (always?) shows the time of birth. Here’s Obama’s regular and long form certificates as an example: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/04/27/president-obamas-long-form-birth-certificate
Edit: I have a commemorative birth certificate from the hospital where I was born and only found out it wasn’t official about 5 years ago when our local DMV requires an official birth certificate to get or new a driver’s license.
I was born six years before Michael Jackson, and my birth certificate has the time on it.
Born in 1947 and mine has it.
1949 and I have the time on mine
My guess would be about the time that wall clocks became commonplace and inexpensive enough to be installed in rooms.
Based on googling birth/death certificates from various years, it looks like sometime between 1880 and 1925 is probably when things changed.
It was probably always important, just a matter of how accurate timepieces can be in the time period. Consider twins: one is the elder, and therefore has the right to inherit more stuff. Sure, people can be friendly, and share, but what if they just don’t feel like it years later? Have them fight it out in the courts, or the Thunderdome™?
Seems unlikely that a midwife would have an accurate timepiece handy, but who’s to say that a doctor would? And when in history were small timepieces accurate enough and widespread enough?
Same with death certificates. People want to mourn on the correct day, in case it happens just before or after midnight. You can just tell them, “Yeah, the went, at 'bout this time. But ya know, mourn whenever you want.” But we don’t talk to people like that. Maybe more significant for monarchs and other important people but … everyone is a little important, especially the more property and assets they have. Now matter how few or insignificant those assets may be in the grand scheme.
I.e. – some serf dies and his son is now the “head serf” but which one, and exactly when.
Pfft Arkcon, he’s a serf, a nobody, bound to the land. Who cares?
Plenty of people do. Do you want the transition smooth, or do you want to spend time arguing about it?
Born 1959 - mine has time too.
I have a copy of my mother’s birth certificate, she was born in 1932. She was born at 9:14 am. She was born at home and was delivered by a midwife. I am assuming the midwife supplied the county with the birth information, the copy I have is stamped official from the Pierce County Vital Records Department.
I have a birth certificate issued in 1969 when I was born. I needed another one about 1995 because my new state of residence refused to recognize the original for some reason I forget. Neither has a time listed on it. I needed a new one about 2011 for a passport application, because the first two lacked my parents’ names. This third certificate does include the time. I happened to be staying 20 miles away, so I went down to the village clerk’s office in person. She looked up the record in a huge ledger that contained all sorts of information that was never listed on any of my three certificates (doctor’s name, hospital name, parents’ address, etc.). So at least in some cases they have the information about time, even if it isn’t always listed on the certificate.
Why would an older twin have more “rights” to an inheritance than a younger one? We don’t live in a medieval culture with primogeniture anymore, do we? Even then, I assume it was always “known” which twin was older, thus clocks were not as important.
What precisely is being recorded as ‘time of birth’?
My understanding (no personal experience*) is that his is an arduous process, sometimes lasting for hours. Is it when the head first emerges (assuming normal presentation)? When the whole body is out of the mother When the cord is clamped/cut? When the baby takes it’s first breath (but some don’t)? And what about C-section births?
I would guess that the actual point that is recorded varies by hospital or even by doctors within a hospital, so is really not a very exact time during the birth process.
*Well, I once had a personal experience of this, but I don’t remember much that far back. 
I always used the time the baby was completely out of the mother’s body.
This one I can answer, since I was in the delivery room for all three of my children’s C-section birth. It’s the moment the doctor removes the child from the mother’s uterus. And yes, it was actually a precise moment.
Fun factoid. When my wife gave birth to twins, the second one’s birth was recorded as one minute after the first one. In real time, it was more like 20 seconds.
I’m curious about time of death on death certificates. I used to do removals with a friend for a couple of years and since we were on call at night (we both worked for the mortuary during the day) and all day weekends, we usually got called only for the terminally ill or elderly, i.e. no questions asked when they passed. I know that sometimes people would call the mortuary immediately, but were told they’d have to wait for the someone (usually the EMTs) to pronounce death before we could head out.
There were only two times I want to where the person had died unexpectedly and were called by the police, one was an elderly woman (who was already in a body bag) and the other was a older guy, in his 50’s or 60’s so the officer said obviously fell and hit his head on the fridge (there was a trail of blood on fridge to the floor). AFAIK, time of death in both cases was estimated as a few days earlier.
Mine 1947 with date and time, wife’s 1952 date and time.
My Mom was born in 1927, in a hospital here in Hawaii. She said that even though her birth certificate states Feb 1st as her birthdate (don’t know if the time was included or not), she was told she was born 1 or 2 days earlier and they didn’t get around to recording her birth until the 1st. I’ve heard stories of many others born at home during Hawaii’s Plantation Days, not having their births recorded until much later.
My mom was born in 1913, and the doctor would make his rounds, noting who was born and who died. When he got around to it, he’d report the info to the authorities, usually a day or two late, or longer. She said, they always celebrated her “real” birthday, but the date on her birth certificate is two days later.
The delay between the birth and recording is something I’ve heard before, but don’t understand. I mean, I understand that there’s sometimes a delay- what I don’t understand is why the correct date isn’t entered for the date of birth. All the birth certificates I’ve ever seen ( and due to the jobs I’ve had, I’ve seen plenty) had separate fields for “date of birth” and “date filed” or “date signed”
One’s the actual time the baby came out of its mother, and the other is the time it was actually filed in the city/county/state system officially.
To use an example of why they might differ, a child could be born at say… 9 pm at night, and the birth won’t get recorded until the following day. Or on a Saturday, and recorded the following Monday, for example.
Or they may just batch them up and fill out the paperwork a couple times a week or so in a smaller hospital. Here in Texas, "The person required to file a birth certificate shall file the certificate not later than the fifth day after the date of the birth.", and the person required is either the doctor, midwife or hospital administration person in the majority of births.