All in all, I think the issue is still floating around because some people want to believe it. It gets fostered by the fact that the "birth certificate" produced doesn't really look like a birth certificate I've ever seen. But maybe that's just what Hawaii's certificates look like.From FactCheck.Org (see my above post for the link):
If you look at my birth certificate, it appears to be a photocopy of an original document signed contemporaneuosly at the time of my birth. That's not what his looks like. I might have, in a file somewhere that my mama set aside, one of those other kind of certificates that even has the little feet stamps in the corner. But I'd be hard pressed to find it. I've seen my county certificate though...and it looks like a photocopy, with the signatures on it from whomever signed it on the day of my birth.
If I needed a copy of my birth certificate, I'd go to the county of my birth, and pay the certified copy fee, and get one. I'm guessing that is what they did to get the one shown. I have to admit though, that the one shown by OB does not look like a contemporaneuos document at the time of his birth...it looks like a certification, produced today, of the birth records. But that may be be all they have. Originally Posted by Rudyard K
The certificate has all the elements the State Department requires for proving citizenship to obtain a U.S. passport: "your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records." The names, date and place of birth, and filing date are all evident on the scanned version, and you can see the seal above.
The document is a "certification of birth," also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details. The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department. We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response.