Birth certificates around the turn of the century are a random thing. My grandfather, born in Maspeth at home in 1908, had one. My grandmother, born in Maspeth at home in 1913, did not. (They were required at the time, but I have been told that the law was not strictly enforced.) My grandmother's sister, who was born in 1911 and only lived 2 days, has a death certificate but not a birth certifcate. (And the death certificate has the last name misspelled. If not for the fact that Nana had held on to a clipping of the obit all of her life, I never would've found her sister.) Lisa On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 8:15 AM, Kathleen Scarlett O'Hara Naylor via < [email protected]> wrote: > I wonder if the birth record for that child was recorded BECAUSE s/he only > lived for a day? Recording deaths was taken much more seriously than births > for some time, and if you're already filling out certificates, maybe you > just do both because of the opportunity?