This morning, the White House released President Obama’s long-form birth certificate to the public, for all to see. Obama felt that it was important for the public to see his long-form birth certificate because lately there has been a lot of controversy over his birthplace, and that controversy has been taking the focus off of other events of national importance. In 2008, Obama had released a similar certificate called a “Certificate of Live Birth”, but a group of people who have come to be known as the “birthers” said that that form of a birth certificate was not proof positive of where he was born. The “birthers” went on to say that the absence of a long – form birth certificate should cast doubt on whether Obama was actually born in Hawaii.
Of course, all of this controversy over Obama’s birth certificate is of interest to genealogists, because we use birth certificates and other records in our genealogy research. I decided to find out what the similarities and differences are between short-form birth certificates (also called Certificates of Live Birth) and long-form birth certificates. Both types of forms are issued by the Department of Health in the state where the birth occurred. In order for either of these forms to be released to the public, the person for whom the certificate was issued must consent to its release. The long form is basically an identical image (a photocopy) of the original certificate, where all of the medical and non-medical information is present and the signatures are hand-written. The short form contains most, but not all of the same information as the long form and is a computer-generated form that is accessible in a database, so it does not have to be photocopied. As far as what you can do with each form, the short form is sufficient for drivers’ licenses, passports, and many other things. The long form is only required for a few situations, such as international adoptions or applications for dual citizenship.