You may not need a birth certificate in order to get a card but you (in some counties) need a birth certificate in order to collect SS. My father was a very strange case. He and 4 other siblings were abandoned by their parents when he was five in 1925. He never had a birth certificate. He was in WWII, went to school, paid in for I don't know how many years, then when he went to collect they said NO WAY. He then had to prove who he was. So they sent for a birth certificate in the state where he was born (PA) and guess what? He found out his name was different, his first and middle names had been reversed around, his last name was spelled differently, and best of all his birth day was a week earlier. They really said NO in a big way then. So he had to go to a lawyer, and try to get a mess that had occurred 50 years earlier straightened out. It turns out that the authorities changed the spelling of each one of the children's last name just a little so that it would be that more difficult for them to find each other. His lawyer filed an affidavit explaining the situation. Then when he went to another County to file for SS, they just said no problem and gave it to him without even asking for a birth certificate. So I think it depends on the place and person you talk to. But in most cases I think you need a birth cerficate in order to collect Social Security. PS: We still have not found one of the five children! One that we know of is still living and she and my father met for the first time last October. It had been 75 years since they were separated. They were living less than 50 miles from each other. In fact at one point they lived as close as 10 miles and never knew. I found his other sister's family just this summer and visited her grave several weeks ago. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/