I also know that each state handles births (and deaths) differently. "Official" certificates of birth do not have a State Seal in some states. I also now that a Certificate of Birth is NOT the official record, it is a document provided to parents or the person it applies to on request.
The official record of your birth is an entry in a Record of Births (in a case of death, Record of Deaths). Just where this record is physically located varies state to state, and depends on what era it was issued. From several people I know, they found their Record of Birth at the County Seat where they were born, others found theirs at the state's Hall of Records.
In each case, these people requested a Birth Certificate from the applicable agency. That agency then printed the document (in according with state practices) and issued it.
In my case, I have two Birth Certificates. The original one issued to my parents; an official Pennsylvania State form, filled in in indelible ink (no seal), that was accepted (notarized copy made at a Naval office) as official for my NSA Security Check when I was in the Navy. The other was one I requested from the State of Pennsylvania much later, that came with a State Seal (just like a Notary Seal). I noted, from the cover letter, that it was issued by the County Seat where I was born which means that is where my Record of Birth is located.
"Donald Trump Says President Obama's grandmother caught on tape saying she witnessed his birth in Kenya" by Robert Farley, PolitiFact.com 4/7/2011
Excerpt
Trump made an identical claim in a Today Show interview the same morning: "His grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth, okay?"
This is actually an old claim that has been bouncing around the Internet for years. But keeping up with the latest birther claims is often like playing Whac-A-Mole, and we never got around to this one. So here we go.
The claim is based on an Oct. 16, 2008, telephone call between Bishop Ron McRae of the Anabaptist Churches of North America and Sarah Obama of Kenya, Barack Obama's elderly step-grandmother. The interview is complicated by the addition of at least one translator, because Sarah Obama, then 86, spoke Swahili.
The edited portion that often makes the rounds on the Internet includes this part of the interview:
McRae: "Could I ask her about his actual birthplace? I would like to see his birthplace when I come to visit Kenya in December. Was she present when he was born in Kenya?"
"She says yes she was. She was present when Obama was born," said the translator.
Smoking gun? Only if you stop the tape there and don't listen to the rest of the interview.
McRae immediately followed up by saying, "Okay, when I come in December, I would like to go by the place, the hospital where he was born. Could you tell me where he was born? Was he born in Mombasa?"
The translator can be heard translating, and then, he said, "No. Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America."
Said McRae: "Whereabouts was he born? I thought he was born in Kenya."
The response came back, "He was born in America, not in Mombasa."
"Do you know where he was born?" McRae continued. "I thought he was born in Kenya. I was gonna go by and see where he was born."
"Hawaii. She says he was born in Hawaii," the translator said. "In the state of Hawaii, where his father, his father was also learning there. The state of Hawaii."
"I thought she said she was present," McRae said. "Was she able to see him being born in Hawaii?''
"No, no," the translator said. "...She was not ... she was here in Kenya. Obama was born in America ... Because the grandmother was back in Kenya and Obama was born in America, where he is from, where his father was learning, learning in America, the United States."
Listen to the full conversation yourself (download audio). The parts in question begin about the 4:20 mark.
McRae -- who we should emphasize was not the translator -- has kept the theory alive. In a Dec. 5, 2008 article, Salon ran an affidavit from McRae in which he maintains Sarah Obama confirmed she witnessed Obama's birth in Kenya:
"Though some few younger relatives, including Mr. Ogombe (one of the translators), have obviously been versed to counter such facts with the common purported information from the American news media that Obama was born in Hawaii, Ms. Sarah Hussein Obama was very adamant that her grandson, Senator Barack Hussein Obama, was born in Kenya, and that she was present and witnessed his birth in Kenya, not the United States. When Mr. Ogombe attempted to counter Sarah Obama's clear responses to the question, verifying the birth of Senator Obama in Kenya, I asked Mr. Ogombe, how she could be present at Barack Obama's birth if the Senator was born in Hawaii, but Ogombe would not answer the question, instead he repeatedly tried to insert that, "No, No, No. He was born in the United States!"
That's not what we heard on the tape. What we heard was a very rough translation in which an elderly woman agreed to the leading question that Obama was born in Kenya and that she was present. But it was immediately and clearly corrected -- repeatedly.
I intend NOT to post on this subject again.
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