another birth certificate question

[daltonsdodisney]

Okay, it's going to be my husband, myself, 2 daughters, and my parents. Some of us have original BC's. Some don't have anything. Some have raised seal, some don't. What do we need to do? I think when I enrolled my daughter for kindergarten, I couldn't find hers and had to get a copy from the health dept. Is this good enough? What is a certified copy and how do you get that? I hate to have some snags if we can prevent it beforehand.
Thanks!

 

[Mjasp]

We ordered our certified copy from Vitalchek.com. They charge $15 plus $5 handling fee. total was $20. Was born in NYC and it took 1 week to get the birth certificate. Thought it would take a month or 2, was pleasantly surprised.

 

[SC Minnie]

I also ordered a certified copy of mine and DD from vitalcheck.com We had the credit card size ones but those aren't considered certified copies. It took about a week. I requested 2 copies for each of us- one for home and one for the safe deposit box in case the one at home was ever misplaced. The certified ones from SC dpn't have a raised seal but a colored stamp. I read on a previous thread that other states also just have the colored stamp instead of the raised seal.

 

[idontknow]

ACK!!! My BC isn't certified?!? I have the credit card sized one and haven't looked at it yet for the raised seal because we won't need ours until Sept. Thanks for the heads up! (now why didn't they tell me that when I got it? It's the government, of course. LOL)

I just went and looked at my Indiana credit card sized BC. It does have a raised seal. Yippie! (even thought it is incased in plastic, you can still see that there is a seal) I will definately call our city clerks office and make sure it is "certified" by their standards, though.

 

[my3kids]

My BC isn't just crdit card sized, it is actually exactly like a credit card...hard plastic with raised letters just like credit card numbers. It was all I needed to get a passport, so it is certified. But, so glad we all have passports and thus no need to worry at check in about the acceptance of birth certificates.

 

[daltonsdodisney]

Where did you get the wallet credit card-type BC? That would be very convenient.

 

[RickW]

The decision is up to you, and you may not feel it is worth the cost, but the very best way to avoid snags is to get passports for everyone.

You can find info about passports here:

http://travel.state.gov/passport_services.html