Aside from the State storages, the local government such as counties also stores their own copies of birth certificates of the people born under their area of jurisdiction. The records are kept not only for archive purposes but also for genealogical needs. Some sites such as Ancestry.com maintain a countrywide database with information collected from all the American states and also from the people supporting the site.
Way back before, government officials only maintain birth records at a local level until they realized that centralizing it by state can give more secure storage for the records. This is due to the problems arising from the growing number of population and more people keep on relocating from one place to another. With a statewide storage of records, retrieval of records anywhere in the state will no longer be an issue. Prevention of record damages because of natural disasters such as flood and fire is also one of the advantages of a wide alternative storage.
In the early 1900's, people keep a record of their birth in family Bibles or not keep it at all. Until in 1935, the Social Security Administration began the practice of keeping people's records that also gives awareness to people on the importance of keeping their own records, too.
Most of the misconceptions about birth records are that they were kept in hospitals where the person was born. It's not true. Some hospital records may include some details of your birth but with millions of patients, as you grow old, they can no longer find your records because they are not storing it in a database anyway. And one more thing, it is not the hospitals primary responsibility to store and retrieve public records for people. They'd rather save lives than waste their time finding your medical birth records just like finding a needle in a haystack!
Another misconception is that the United States Census Bureau is thought to be the one responsible for keeping birth certificates. Some personal information such as name, address and age were recorded in census files but basically the U.S. Census Bureau is not responsible for keeping the birth certificates at all, not even a copy.
The fact remains that birth certificates are kept by the state authorities and birth records can be accessible online through records search sites that provides comprehensive public records.
