re: #654 Pianobuff

Actually I do. It’s about the only thing I’ve somehow not lost. It’s a negative copy of the microfiched certificate. So it’s not exactly the original, but its more or less an authentic facsimile of the image of the original - so I count it as such.

I suspect I’m in the minority though.

I have my copy, but only because my mother is wise. I was born in Germany, so she made a trip and got the official copy because I was born abroad. When I went to get my passport I proffered two docs, one the official birth cert in German, and the other a standard form “report of citizen born abroad” or something like that - when I turned them in they handled it with extreme care; ooohinng and ahhhing over the antique docs created with typewriter and carbon paper, they went into some weird bureaucratic glee over them. Except for the supervisor they hadn’t seen anything of the like before . If mom hadn’t made a special trip to get it then I would have something akin to what you see for Obama.