They did. The people in the story have birth certificates issued by the state of Texas.
You know what’s odd too? You can google your own name and find all the addresses you lived at, since you were old enough to have an address under your name with the USPS. I wonder if that would constitute proof of where your parents lived at the time of your birth, if you could find them this way? Probably not, because this all doesn’t seem to be about objective proof.
I didn’t see in any of the articles that the birth certificates were issued through the state, only that the midwives had signed the certificates.
I found my ‘birth certificate’ when I was about 8, and it had no name on it. It had my birth date and was signed by the doctor, and it even had a little seal on it with the hospital’s name (like a notary stamp), but no name for me. Well, it turned out my parents couldn’t agree on my name with my grandmother so took me home without a name, and I was named 16 days later when I was baptized (also have a very official looking baptism certificate with seals and signatures). They later called in my name and it was recorded. Turns out this birth certificate with the seal of the hospital was nothing, not official, just a keepsake. An official certificate comes from the state. I ordered one to get a passport and it is just a copy of a microfiche page that is certified by the secretary of state. It looks so much less official than the little card from the hospital.
My kids have birth certificates that aren’t signed by anyone. Looks like a 8x10 certificate, with green scrolling around the edges. The state certifies them but the only information on them are date of birth, time,city and county, and parents’ names and ages (yes, weird). It doesn’t even give the name of the hospital, and no signatures of doctors or midwives.
One low level government employee can unilaterally make your life a living hell by misreading or misinterpreting the rules. Or they have had a bad day… Or maybe for no apparent reason… Or maybe they are just making up rules…
True story from a dozen years ago, when my oldest was getting his drivers license. Our state was already requiring real ID documentation. We are military. There is no requirement for a military member or family member already licensed in another state to change their drivers license when moving from state to state. My son had already been issued his learner’s permit, had passed the test for his provisional license, and as we were at the cubical to complete the process, the worker bee handling it asked to see my drivers license, and then said she could not give my son a license because we had lived in the state for longer than (60? 90?) days and I hadn’t changed my license. I showed her the printed rules addressing military family members. She said the law had recently changed. I asked her to show me documentation of that. She could not find it (because it had not, in fact, changed) but insisted she could not issue a drivers license to my son because I did not have a license in the state.
I didn’t accept that answer and walked into the office of the station manager, who rolled her eyes, said I was correct and verbally chastised the employee who had tried to deny issuing the drivers license. The license was issued immediately.
I happen to br a white, strong willed woman. What if I had allowed that single employee to have the final say? What if I hadn’t been absolutely sure of the law? What if I hadn’t printed out that rule that is easily found on the MVA website? What if I hadn’t challenged the assertation that the law had changed? (It had not, and never has, changed.)
I did, however, soon after that, switch my own drivers license to the state we were living in. It looked like we were going to be here for awhile (we are still here), and I had two more kids who would be getting their own drivers licenses. I did not want to repeat that scene.
The midwives, doctors, hospitals, sign the birth certificate and fill it out. It is sent to the state and a copy is sent back to the parents. There’s no way anyone would sign a certificate and just hand it to the parents without recording it with the state.
I’m compiling documents and I’ve ordered 3 copies of everything I need. My Dad’s birth certificate, from MS in the 1930s, where he was born at home and delivered by a doctor, is quite official looking. It is on banknote paper like most of the other copies I received. Back in the day, his parents were probably given a flimsier looking certificate. The only ones I’ve ordered now that seem flimsy are a couple from New York City (which keeps its own records separate from NYS) also from the 1930s and earlier.
If you or your children only have that flimsy older style of certificate, order yourself new copies. In some cases only the person themselves is able to order a copy, unless an official death certificate is sent to the place (NYC again). It can’t hurt to have them on hand.
And, don’t die in NJ! They are a huge pain and you have to do everything by mail. Some places will get things to you quickly, but PA has an 80-90 day processing time.
I was born in Mass. The official copies I have (ordered by my mother in the 1970’s and by me in the 1990’s) are the same - a photocopy of the microfiche. It is on legal sized paper. It has a seal from the secretary of state. It is not the same as the card the hospital provided at all, and has a lot more information - time of birth, weight, length, doctor’s name, hospital.
This is what you get when you order it off the secretary of state website or the commercial site (Vitalrecords? something like that.)
One of my kids, born in Colorado, has they official certificate, from the dept of health. The other has a certificate of foreign birth, which is different (vertical and not horizontal) and states “not valid for proof of citizenship.” It’s basically worthless.
Gee, you’re making everyone think they should all order triplicate birth certificates of themselves, spouse, parents and kids. Hmmm, something to consider. It’s fairly reasonably-priced in HI and all of us were born in HNL. I still have a certified copy of birth certificate for me, H and our kids. We are told my older sib has everything for the folks.
You can order extra birth certificates, but know that they might not be accepted for everything. Some government agencies require the birth crtificate to have been issued within 6 months to be accepted. We ran into that for getting driver’s licenses (so just easier to get a new passport) and when I was doing adoption paperwork everything had to be certified within the last 6 months. We couldn’t just use the old wrinkled one from the fire safe.
@HImom - if they’re cheap and easy to get now, they’ll probably continue to be cheap and easy. Then again, it doesn’t hurt to get them!
I only need 3 copies because I’m looking into dual citizenship and the country in question will not likely return any documents to me.
@twoinanddone - everything I’ve gotten is vertical. Some are so long they’re even folded up at the bottom. Funny differences.
Oh Geez…
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/opinion/weingarten-homebirth-border-passports.html
I have a daughter who was delivered by a midwife in a “non institutional setting”. Good thing she has a passport already. For now, anyway…
ETA - in case you can’t see the article, her surname is German but her husband’s is Hispanic. They live outside Tucson which is far south but not a border town. There were no complaints about her midwife.
Well, I have a good friend currently working at the Dept of Health. She can help me get records easily now. I’d better get them before she retires in the near future.
While I’m at it, I might as well get them for BIL, as he was born in HNL but lives in SF. When his sister died (also born in HNL living in SF), we did need some birth certificates for something. I remember standing in the line for hours. My friend laughed and said she could have gotten them for me no problem.
Just looked online — our state allows online applications for certified birth certificates, so pretty easy to obtain, but it takes up to 8+ weeks to get them by mail. Sent the info to BIL.
Problem is, many people would not believe that a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii is real or proof that the person was born in the US.
Well, we can only have the legal documents that pertain to us. We can’t change folks’ perceptions if they chose not to believe they’re legit. 
“You can order extra birth certificates, but know that they might not be accepted for everything. Some government agencies require the birth crtificate to have been issued within 6 months to be accepted. We ran into that for getting driver’s licenses (so just easier to get a new passport) and when I was doing adoption paperwork everything had to be certified within the last 6 months. We couldn’t just use the old wrinkled one from the fire safe.”
@twoinanddone could you clarify that? Does your state require a birth certificate copy to have been issued within the last six months as proof of citizenship when getting a drivers license?
That means every single teenager in your state (who doesn’t already have a passport) would need to request an official copy of his birth certificate within six months prior to taking a drivers license test? That seems extreme. We have used the same originals we requested from the states our kids were born in for everything. Those birth certificates are as old as they are.
I only trust states that weren’t attacked. 
I’ve never heard of an issue as to when the certified birth certificate was ordered. I have several that are decades old and have never had issues using them whenever one is required. We haven’t reordered any new ones so the only ones we have are decades old.
Yes, that’s what I was told when we moved to Florida. I went over to the DMV (called the Taxpayer’s office) and was told we could use a certified within-the-last-6-months birth certificate with some other required documents OR a passport. All our passports were expired, but it was still easier to get new ones, which we needed anyway, than to order new certified birth certificates from different states. My kids were both getting first time driver’s permits, and I would have had to order a ‘fresh’ birth certificate from Colorado for one, and needed all the adoption paperwork and Certificate of Citizenship for the other. Those documents cannot be ‘refreshed’ but I don’t like to hand them over to anyone. Replacing a lost C of C is $1200. Florida was REAL ID compliant (license came with a gold star on it), and were very strict about the requirements.
I know a lot of people have trouble using an expired passport to get a new one, but I’ve never had an issue. To get the next passport, we’ve always been able to use the prior one for all requirements except the clerk takes a copy of my current ID for my kids. I was very impressed with the clerk we had in Florida as one kid was getting a new kid’s passport (they don’t renew), next kid was getting a first time adult passport (didn’t need me to sign anymore) and I was renewing an adult passport. Clerk knew all the forms and documents required for each.
When I was doing adoption paperwork, everything had to be certified within 6 months of submitting it to the US government. Everyone had to order new birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees and then have them certified, then submit to the foreign consulate for seals and signatures. It was not unusual at all for a certification to expire and to have to get another copy certified before submitting.
I don’t think my or my kids birth certificates state when they were created? The original copies were from when we were all born so that would certainly not be within 6 months of getting a license. They had to have a raised seal but I don’t think that has a date on it (and is hard to read). I found it interesting that it was harder to get a new drivers license than a copy of a birth certificate.
Our state requires a piece of official mail, but can also be from a bank as well as a utility (at least so far). I don’t think any of our utilities are in my name and certainly not in my kid’s name. As things go more online, how will that work to prove your address? I guess a lease or a tax bill would work.
My daughter’s birth certificate, the official one, does list the date the document was issued (some 22 years ago!). My daughter’s Certificate of Citizenship lists the date she became a citizen and then the date of the document. Those dates can be years apart, but hers are only about a week apart as we were in line when the law changed.
As I stated above, my daughter in Florida had nothing with her home address on it as the lease was out of date and bills were not in her name (student lease) but the state has an affidavit you can sign that says you have nothing with the address on it but that it is really your address.
Even online bills have an address attached to them; they just aren’t mailed, but your cable bill and electric bill have an address on them. It really wasn’t difficult to get new licenses even though we’d just moved in. You can also mail yourself an ‘official letter’ or the DMV will do it, and then you bring it back with you.