Need to verify a birth date? Get a birth certificate! But it's not always that easy. Birth certificates weren't always the way Americans recorded births. Before the early 20th century, the family Bible was the record of choice for many births.
As the 20th century marches on, it becomes necessary to show proof of age and citizenship for activities such as registering for school, applying for a marriage certificate, government work during wartime, and applying for Social Security. Bible documentation was ephemeral. Only one person can "own" the Bible, which can be easily destroyed due to catastrophic events. It also isn't an "official" record.
The Census Bureau and Public Health Departments worked on standardizing birth certificates and solving the problem of documenting a person's birth and relationship to their parents, which eventually resulted in the widespread use of government-issued birth certificates.
So, how do you "prove" age when a birth was not recorded? That's where a Delayed Birth Certificate comes in.
Delayed Birth Certificates asked for affidavits from those who knew best when the person was born. Family, an attending physician or midwife, a neighbor or friend provided information about the birth or the age of the person. Other "proofs" could include government documents, the family Bible, and, in the following example, a DAR application.
For more examples of delayed birth certificates or to find what's available via the FamilySearch Catalog.
Ultimately, the issuance of birth certificates was vital for identification.
The enormity of the delayed registration problem can be better visualized from the fact that there were in 1940 about 54 million people in the United States without birth certificates on file during the first year of life. Although the pressure on the State bureaus of vital statistics was relived somewhat by WPA aid in the searches of birth certificates, the situation is still critical. It is difficult to determine what effect the disruption of the regular functions of the State vital statistics offices will have on the quality and completeness of national vital statics, or to predict the course of the delayed birth registration problem in the future.*
Resources
GenealogyBank Blog - Genealogy 101 #9 Birth Certificate Alternatives
"From Family Bibles to Birth Certificates. Young People, Proof of Age, and American Political Cultures, 1820-1915" by Shane Landrum in Age in America: The Colonial Era to the Present. Edited by Corinne T. Field and Nicholas L. Syrett. New York: New York University Press (2015).
Pearson, Susan, The Birth Certificate : An American History. University of North Carolina Press 2021.
Sources
*Vital Statistics-Special Reports. Oklahoma Summary of Vital Statistics 1940. page 1261. Available via GoogleBooks.
Originally posted as Women's History Month 2018 Delayed Birth Certificates
No comments:
Post a Comment