Birth Certificate Frauds

9/15/19

Far from being harmless quacks, conspiracy theorists and hoaxers can be straight up dangerous frauds and scammers, making cash based on spreading falsehoods and fears to the public.

One highly amusing conspiracy that pops up from time to time by these frauds is something like "your birth certificate with the number on it shows you are traded as a stock and ruled by Britain". This type of hoax is typically perpetuated by "sovereign citizen"/"freeman on the land" or anti Federal Reserve scammers.

I say "highly amusing" because for two months in 2005 (before starting a mathematical statistician career), I worked at the Oregon Department of Human Services, Center for Health Statistics as a Data Operator in the Vital Records department doing data entry and data validation. One task I did a lot was putting these numbers on marriage, birth, death, and divorce certificates.

So just what are these numbers? They are no more than what the numbering machine (which we set by hand) left off at. Say we started the day by setting the numbering machine at say 100,000 and we ended the day at 100,702. Then the next day, we'd start by setting the numbering machine at 100,703. You'd insert the document into the machine and it would punch the number (again, the number you set) on it. These numbers are useful in keeping track of work, finding the record, helping to verify things, and are just one of many numbers on all of these forms (ie. not just birth certificates).

Other numbers you might see on these documents are registrar numbers, state, county, and other codes. It is all quite boring really. The most exciting thing in that job was when we'd go to print out a regular document but someone accidently loaded the printer with the expensive certificate paper. That mistake came out of your paycheck!

I wish these frauds would show actual evidence for their silly claims. They won't ever do that, because that is not what frauds do. What they will do, sadly, is keep making money based on spreading their damaging falsehoods by spinning juvenile fantasy stories.

Thanks for reading.