>From my own beginning experience. If you are researching birth certificate personally at a county recorder's office-------------Do not just look thru the years you expect to find the entry if it was before social security. When social security came into our world, many birth certificates had never been reported so individuals filed LATE certifcates. So you may find late birth certificates filed many many many yrs after their birth. Different counties handled this differently so ask your recorder how theirs were handled if the record may fall in that time space. ----------------also in Iowa, don't know about other states, in I believe about 1995 records of births where only one parent was listed was "taped over" at the local level and the record sent to Iowa Public Health, Lucas Building, Des Moines, Iowa. These considered illigitimate births are only available I was told to the direct family member----------Mother, father, sister, or brother. Yup people have been known to just slightly pull on the tape??, but many have been recopied so not even a taped over record at local level or available to another generation.