The History Of Birth Records
Author: VitalChek Staff

Certified birth certificates are a fairly recent invention,
common only since the 1900s in the United States. Prior to that,
births frequently went unrecorded or were written down by
doctors, midwives, church officials, government bodies or family
members. Historically speaking, the recording of the births of
many prominent figures has taken many forms:

Cleopatra: born in 69 BC in Alexandria, Egypt, this queen and
legendary beauty's birth was recorded by priests in hieroglyphic
text.

Genghis Khan: born 1162 (estimated). Birth records were not
kept at this time in Mongolia, where the legendary leader (born
Temujin) formed the Mongol Empire, the largest continuous empire
in history. Instead, his birth year is an educated guess based
on the date of his death, August 18, 1227.

William Shakespeare: When the legendary playwright was born,
dates of baptism were noted in church records. Shakespeare was
baptized on April 26, 1564, and his birthday, while unconfirmed,
is generally celebrated on April 23.

Abraham Lincoln: Since Lincoln was born in a log cabin before
birth certificates were issued, the only existing record of his
birth is an autobiographical sketch in which the 16th president
of the United States lists February 12, 1809, as his birthday.

Mohatmas Ganhdi: Born into a middle-class family in
British-occupied India on October 2, 1869, the peace activist's
birth was recorded by his family and registered with the local
British-run municipal office.

Paul McCartney: A member of the Beatles and successful solo
artist, his birth (June 18, 1942) was recorded by the General
Register's Office in London. An original, official copy of the
birth certificate was issued to his parents at the time, which
was later sold by McCartney's stepmother to a memorabilia
collector. The collector refused McCartney's request in 1995 to
give it to him, and the original copy has since exchanged hands
at auction several times.

As seen from in the examples above, the process of recording
and storing birth records has changed dramatically over the past
200 years, making it easier to obtain an official copy of a
birth certificate. In the United States, hospitals and midwives
are required by law to record and send birth information to
local government record offices, which kept the information at
the turn of the 20th century in handwritten or typed ledgers.

As technology evolved, so did birth records: photocopying made
the reproduction of certificates easier in the 1960s, and the
creation of computer microprocessors made it possible to record
and conveniently store large amounts of birth data in a small
space. Birth certificates could then be searched, retrieved and
ordered in an open process either in person or through the
mail--an inconvenient process that could take several weeks.

In 1987, VitalChek Network Inc., a ChoicePoint company
introduced express ordering of birth certificates by telephone
and fax with a credit card. Ten years later, VitalChek
streamlined the ordering process even further with the added
option of placing online orders through the Internet. Today,
most state organizations offer remote ordering to people eager
to get an official copy of their birth certificates.

Since the events of September 11, 2001, keeping birth records
private and secure has been a top priority for VitalChek. To
help ensure that no one can falsely obtain an official copy of
someone else's birth certificate, VitalChek is constantly
improving its security checks and streamlining its ordering
process. To learn more about VitalChek and how to expedit a
birth certificate copy, visit http://www.vitalchek.com.


About The Author: For almost 20 years,
http://www.vitalchek.com/ VitalChek has provided Americans with
official http://www.vitalchek.com/content/site_map.aspx
government issued vital records, including of
http://www.vitalchek.com/agency_locator.aspx birth certificates,
death certificates, marriage records and divorce records. We do
this as an official service provider for over 600 government
agencies in the United States.