You are right about service records. I entered the Air Force in 1960 and was required to go back and get a copy of my birth record (Indiana). I only had a hospital certificate, which was not good enough. The people making the copy at the health dept. spelled my middle name wrong and it had to stay that way until I got a corrected copy many years later. They admitted to the mistake. My mother could not enter social security until she had a birth certificate. Her county records burned many years before, and she could not even produce school records - burned also. Fortunately, she had the family bible, and her brother was a witness for her. Bob Jordan