I haven’t come across many delayed birth registration in my 38 years of researching, but I have discovered a few.

What kinds of information can be found on this type of birth certificate and how reliable is it? Well, as for reliability, the answer is that it is only as reliable as the knowledge of the informant. As to the information found on it, details required vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but minimally, one would expect to see the name of the person whose birth is being registered, names of the parents, place and date of birth, informant/s and relationship to the person and possibly other forms of ID if the birth was being registered years after the fact in the 20th century.

I’ve found a few late birth registrations which I believe were filed to prove citizenship during the years of World War I and World War II. My mother-in-law (who passed away some time ago so this doesn’t pertain to a living person) filed a delayed registration of birth for herself in 1944, when she was 25 years old. I never thought to ask her why she did it at that particular time. I know she worked in a military warehouse for a while during World War II. Perhaps she was told she needed to present a copy of her birth certificate. Added to the mystery is that although the Stufflebeans lived in Compton, California at the time, Ruby was born in Verden, Oklahoma so her birth had to be registered there.

Delayed Birth Registration in 1944

Even though I already knew much of this information, this is the ideal delayed birth registration that a researcher would hope to find. Ruby’s mother, Ethel Sturgell, signed the application on 12 May 1944. She provided the place and date of Ruby’s birth, parents’ names AND their birth dates! Parents’ dates of birth is not an item I would expect to see on their child’s birth certificate. Perhaps their ages and places of birth, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this on any other birth certificate I’ve come across. It also gives the states where Ruby’s parents were born, Ruby’s address in 1944, Ethel’s address and other forms of support for Ruby’s birth.

In her case, there is a May 1937 school record from the Anadarko Public Schools department. (Ruby graduated from high school that year.) There apparently was a family Bible, which I’ve never seen or even knew about that is long since gone, recorded by Ethel in July 1919 and a copy of Ruby’s marriage license dated 1938 was also provided. She would have had to account for the surname change from Sturgell to Stufflebean.

Have you discovered any delayed birth registrations for your family members? What details were required for those? Please leave a comment.