When we suffered a fire in our home, we were sad to find out that the fire had also destroyed a lot of our family records, including photographs and birth certificates. So when my daughter was getting ready to register in the university, we had to think of something quick to get her into her classes, since the new hard copy of her birth certificate had not yet arrived. We got on the web with a secretary in the front office to perform a free birth records search, and she was satisfied for the time being with that info, to let Cindy enroll.