A Delayed Birth Certificate By Fifty Years–Part I

To be honest, I never looked this long after the fact. A recent update to “Illinois, Cook County, Birth Certificates” on FamilySearch included a reference to a delayed birth certificate recorded for Anna Margaret Apgar in 1963. According to the index entry the registration date was on Anna’s fiftieth birthday. That in itself seems a little coincidental but there may be nothing to it.

I’ve made a request for the actual record and am also interested to see what documentation for the birth will be a part of this record since Anna was fifty years of age at the time.

Anna was one of three sisters whose births were not recorded at the time they happened. The delayed certificates for her siblings (who were a few years older than Anna) were recorded in the 1930s and were actually filed with the contemporary birth certificates. These were easy to locate. I had located a christening record for Anna which provided her date of birth and the names of her parents. While I wanted a copy of her birth certificate, I felt I had adequate information regarding her birth and names of her parents by having the following records:

• Anna’s 1963 SS-5 form where she applied for a Social Security Number–admittedly this is not contemporary for her birth information.
• The 1921 era divorce of William Apgar and Mary Apgar gives Anna’s age and states she is William’s child
• The 1922 baptismal record for Anna

All three clearly state the same set of parents and the SS-5 form and her 1922 baptismal record provide the same date of birth.

I’m not certain if my search meets the criteria for an “exhaustive search,” but I was satisfied that it had been broad enough.  The divorce record and christening record were consistent and provided the same parental information and a date of birth and age that were consistent.

Now that I know there was a delayed certificate recorded in 1963, my inability to find a contemporary one is not as surprising.

The interesting detail will be if Anna’s mother made an affidavit for the delayed birth certificate of her daughter. She was still living in 1963.