When Your Original Record Isn’t an Original Record

Comments (13)

• It is also useful to become familiar with state laws regarding local records. Some of the “rules” cited by local clerks are as they understand them from local practice and sense of ownership rather than any legal requirement. In one town I went to, I found out that the limitations were due to a former town clerk who simply didn’t want to be bothered, and made up his own rules (learned by talking to a local historian). Succeeding town clerks followed his example without knowing it was not a requirement. The one I talked to was actually relieved, as she felt that people should have access to these materials. Otherwise, she said, why would they have been kept?

• It is so important to get copies of originals when possible. For example in my case I was able to get information on witnesses off a marriage certificate, which help me to recognize them as relatives in my family tree, and place them at a location in the timeline. The marriage officer also turned out to be an ancestor.

• You may have to enlist the help of a local researcher. They may be more accommodating to someone that comes in person that can simply snap a digital photograph of the page, especially if it is a researcher they are familiar with. Their birth records may be so delicate that they don’t want to try and photocopy them but might allow digital imaging.

• I have had the clerk place an event in the wrong century and it was mainly because I had seen the original record that I was able to document that. Also, I had a township clerk place an event in the [current] post office address (a nearby city) rather that the township in which the event actually occurred. These errors make it very difficult for a second researcher to follow up on your paper trail.

• What did Heather’s grandmother do about social security?

• I ordered a Birth certificate for my father from Pennsylvania (1918). They sent me a transcription of the original – not even on a fancy certificate- and the given name they cited was outrageous! As far as I know he was always Vernon Levere, but the BC I was sent claimed his given name to be Reachard.
  I called several times and was told their policy is that the public has access ONLY to what I was given. I requested that they check that the transcriber did not move up a line or down a line in a ledger. I asked them to check if it was a twin birth (I had never heard that it might be a twin birth!) They claimed none of the above could have happened! The parents’ names and birth date agree with all the other information I have, so it was, at least partially, the correct record.
  Do I have any recourse in getting a copy of the original?

• Heather,
  Another thing you have to watch out for are amended certificates where the amendment is on the back or as a separate piece of paper. Sometimes the clerk doesn’t think to include the amendment. If you are lucky, the original will be stamped with the word Amended so that you at least know that an amendment exists.

• That is an entirely different issue and a very complex one because as you say, the laws from state to state are very different.

• I was hoping this article would talk about ‘revised’ birth certificates, when the original birth certificate is sealed. Adoptees often have falsified birth certificates that their state issued when they were adopted, inventing a new name, date and place of birth, and listing the adopting parents as the biological parents of birth. Many states keep the real original birth certificate sealed and will not give it to the adoptee. A person will not know if their birth certificate is original unless they ask. A revised birth certificate due to adoption is passed off by the state as the only one unless an inquiry is made that it was ‘revised’ then they may fess up that it is revised. Some states are a lot worse about this than others. There are a lot of people with revised birth certificates and hidden adoptions that don’t know it.

• Just a note about sending for records. It is not always correct in the records.
  I have a copy of my grandmother’s birth registration where there was an error made in filling it out the day she was born. That was filled in with the date of birth as previous year on one line Only and the rest was correctly done, and the other dates on the page show 1908. However her date of birth is registered as 23 April 1907. When she was born in 1908.
  This is a real puzzle for her as she tried to have it corrected by the correct channels when she was old enough and they told her to send them some money and they would do it. At that time of course she did not have funds so left it as it was.
  The funny thing being that her sister was born on 28 March 1907, so they would have been rather late twins if the dates had been correct. (Her poor mother.)
  On the good side she did know the correct date to tell all of “her family” and it was recorded in the old family bible so we have a record of the birth from that. I was actually the one who was passed down the family bible and now have that as a treasure to pass on.

• More and more records ARE coming online (YAY!) but at last count less than 10% of the available documents are online. It will be many years before we have easy access to everything. Having said that, I always do a search at all of the available online venues first before I call/write the courthouse/repository. You just never know!

• I have never had a court clerk copy information on a certificate. I’m do good getting a copy of the page in the record book. With the Internet providing so many sources and copies of actual records and record books. I look there for documentation before making requests from County Court houses these days.

• This is particularly important in Italian civil or parish records.