Emily, et al. Delayed birth certificates are a 20th century contrivance. Most of the ones I have seen were done in the 1930's thru 50's to secure some kind of government benefit be it homestead, job or old age benefits under social security. They were filed in the county courthouse, not the health dept. They were not required and were only done for a very short period of time. >From George G. Morgan's e-zine is this example: Delayed Birth Certificates Children born outside a hospital, perhaps at home with the services of a relative or midwife, may not have been issued a birth certificate. Others whose births occurred before the time when the recording of births was mandated by state law also lacked natal documentation. In these cases, they may have required that a Delayed Certificate of Birth be issued in order to obtain a passport, to apply for Social Security benefits, to enlist in a branch of the service or for some other purpose. In 1971, for example, as my father prepared to apply to collect Social Security retirement benefits, he applied in the State of North Carolina for a delayed birth certificate. The process entailed obtaining at least three pieces of evidence to confirm his date of birth. In his case, his delayed birth certificate indicated that he provided the following pieces of evidence and the dates of the documents: ----- Family Bible that was in his possession (and his address) in which the copyright date of the bible and the detailed birth entry were noted. ----- A life insurance policy issued by a specific company, the issuer's address, the policy number, and the issue date of 6/11/1940 (The state presumed that the insurance company had previously verified the date of birth of the insured.) ----- Copy of the 1920 Federal census record issued to my father by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., indicating my father's age in years at the time of the census. The delayed birth certificate application was processed in Alamance County, NC, the county of his birth, and the Office of Vital Statistics in Raleigh signed off that no prior birth certificate was on file in their office. The application was approved and a certificate was issued. In another instance, my maternal grandmother's eldest sister provided similar evidence for her in 1951 in the form of a sworn affidavit stating the date of my grandmother's birth. Another article by Kathi Stitner in Ancestry magazine added this tidbit: When Social Security benefits were instituted in 1937, each employed person filed an application for a Social Security number. The application form asked questions concerning birth date and place, parents' names, spouse's name, and residence address at the time of the application. To receive benefits, individuals were also required to document their births, even if their birth states had not required birth registration. The 1880 and 1900 census enumerations were partially or fully indexed to help provide this documentation, and, during this time, many delayed birth certificates were issued by counties when individuals submitted family information such as Bibles to the court. The resulting information was kept in the individual's Social Security files and is now available from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Social Security Administration through the Freedom of Information Act.