Birth Days and Places

Happy birthday to our girls of summer--Marisa, Mallory, Sarah and Hailey! What a fun way to end the summer each year. I hope everyone has a great day. Looks to me as if Mallory is asking "What's with the cone on my head?" You can see here she is destined for greatness.

Birth days and places have been on my mind. We FINALLY got ourselves together and took ourselves down to get passports. Of course, James is the only one of us without a birth certificate that has a raised seal. The directions said we could bring other documents to support proof of birth if the birth certificate didn't have the raised seal. So we did but the lady behind the counter was having none of it. That's a whole other story, but I ended up ordering a new birth certificate for James, which was surprisingly easier than I expected it was going to be.

The piece of paper I consider to be James' original birth certificate says he was born in Bay Shore--information that makes sense and information we have used every time that information was required. The new "official" birth certificate arrived and says he was born in Islip.

I feel certain I will get nowhere arguing the point with the authorities but to me this is a pretty big problem. Where you are born is an integral part of your history. It shapes you and is carried down through the generations. I am still trying to figure out how to handle this but I want future generations to know their ancestor was born in Bay Shore New York. How can New York State change your place of birth? I am nearly speechless thinking about the implications.