* Birth Certificates *
In England, where English Common Law arose, even into modern times a birth certificate is not given official regard as an identity document, although the novel phenomenon of demanding it as such has very recently arisen parallel with this same novel trend in the U.S. [and has led to a 2004 statute in Britain authorizing issuance of new birth certificates in some cases, despite its official status as NOT being an identity document]. Indeed, the early advent of birth certificates bore no impact upon the ability of an individual to change identity at will, initially being devoid of identity information specific to any individual, and the complete and universal disregard for their existence in daily business and life prevented their existence from infringing upon that right. That is, birth certificates were not solicited for any purposes except later in contested inheritances of noble titles, and so their rare existence did not disclose the existence of any former identity of an individual, and such information remained strictly private throughout life.
Presently, in U.S. law, a birth certificate continues this legal tradition and does not dictate an individual's contemporaneous legal identity, and is Constitutionally prohibited from doing so. (Marbury v. Madison (S Ct., 1803); Christianson v. King County (S Ct., 1915); Harman v. Forsenius (S Ct., 1965); Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (S Ct., 1989); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey (S Ct., 1992); Lawrence v. Texas (S Ct., 2003); et al.; Jonson v. Greaves (KB, 1765); Entick v. Carrington and Three Other King's Messengers (KB, 1765); et al.). In order to make any use of a birth certificate subsequent to birth in proper accordance with the rule of law, it is necessary for states to issue new birth certificates to an individual upon identity change, and without cross-reference to any prior identity information or certificate, at the sole direction of that individual. Failure of any agents of the state to do so constitutes felony violations of law. (18 U.S.C. §§ 241, 242, 1001, 1028, et al.).
The concept of the birth certificate appears to have derived from customs among nobility, where it was originally applied strictly among nobility. It was a determination of a putative heir to a noble title, and the role of this certification was to ensure the ongoing lineage of that particular noble title. Acknowledgment and acceptance of a child as an heir by a noble family was optional, and at the discretion of the noble head of household. Such 'certifications' were issued directly by heads of noble households as acknowledgments of a potential heir and inheritance right of that heir, and could be issued or revoked at any time by that noble (the putative heir could be disowned) to any individual able to fulfill the duties of the role of heir to that title, even an individual biologically of another lineage (the noble could adopt any child or adult as an heir).
During later times of increasingly stringent patrilineal patriarchy, family noble lineage became predominantly patrilineal (passing from patriarchal head of household to patriarchal heir), and gender role associations by such certifications slowly emerged. The right to inherit noble titles also came to be determined more formally in the order of seniority of potential heirs, giving rise to an interest in determining the order of the acquisition of a potential right to inherit, later becoming more stringently the order of birth (hence documentation of dates of birth, and increasingly consistent issuance of such certifications at birth).
In other words, the 'birth certificates' were certifications of noble lineage and inheritance right that came to be based upon reasonably demonstrated ability to properly fulfill the social role expectations of a patriarchal heir to a family lineage. Any heir without such acknowledgment was not a noble patriarchal heir, and therefore was not documented by such certification. In short, the ancient legal role of a 'birth certificate' was more akin to the modern legal role of a will for noble titles (and the estates associated with those titles). But, again, to ensure the ongoing lineage of that particular noble title. This is why, to this day, the stigma of an 'illegitimate', or 'bastard', conception is so extreme, and nearly on par with feminizing epithets directed at putative males.
Such 'birth certificates' were also not originally in the form of paper documentation, but in symbolic form, such as a grant of right to wear a noble family crest or shield or other symbols on armor or clothing, or go into combat under the standard or banner that represented the noble family, with the putative heir granted the greatest leadership authority (second to the nobleman patriarch himself) under that standard or banner. In these early forms, there were no representations of identity information specific to the individual heir, but only familial information and the putative rights of inheritance to familial noble title. Modern birth certificates sometimes retain vestiges of these early traditions in the form of disclosing parental identity information on the face of some birth certificates.
In general, a putative heir had ongoing opportunity to earn acknowledgment of paternity and masculinity (patriarchal suitability), and the right to inherit, from the putative paternal nobleman throughout life, and could even re-earn it again subsequent to being disowned. Later, when the system of nobility was banished from the U.S., this control over "birth certificates" at law was transferred from the patriarchal nobleman to the free individual, conforming it to the same standard (dictated exclusively by the individual) as for identity change dating to earlier times when name was the full extent of identity. (Marbury v. Madison (S Ct., 1803); Christianson v. King County (S Ct., 1915); Harman v. Forsenius (S Ct., 1965); Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (S Ct., 1989); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey (S Ct., 1992); Lawrence v. Texas (S Ct., 2003); Jonson v. Greaves (KB, 1765); Entick v. Carrington and Three Other King's Messengers (KB, 1765); et al.). Consequently, by common law within the U.S., the power to issue, withdraw, change, reissue or entirely omit a birth certificate is entirely at the discretion of the individual described by that birth certificate. This individual power clearly remains wherever and to whatever extent legislatively enacted laws, pursuant to case law, have not abrogated.
However, it is this history of determination of worthiness for inheritance of a noble title that leaves, to this day, a most profound social shaming in being deemed an 'illegitimate' or 'bastard' child.
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