Genealogy is as popular a passion as scrapbooking or crocheting, especially among certain families and religions.
Proponents for obtaining a replacement birth certificate and using the information to trace one's lineage claim many benefits to knowing where an individual's family hails from.
Additionally, millions of people worldwide go undocumented at birth, creating problems for their government, as well as their own ability to get the benefits of being legally acknowledged.
Fortunately, it is not difficult to replace a lost birth certificate for one's self or a family member, as long as the requestor has the pertinent information.
In today's world, many individuals have ancestors who grew up in families that saw little need to store documents and vital records, as much of this was kept with local government offices or tracked by historians.
In addition, as homes were ransacked, burned, and demolished during the great wars, many families lost birth certificate records as they were destroyed beyond any hope of recovery.
Since there was little urgency to replace these documents in the face of such great devastation, they were never able to be passed on to the next generation.
Without a replacement birth certificate, it becomes difficult for a person's children and grandchildren to learn important details about their lineage, such as their family's medical history.
Many serious illnesses and diseases develop due to a genetic predisposition or weakness, and knowledge of these hereditary issues may help later generations to stay away from lifestyles that complicate such illness.
By obtaining such a certificate, anyone considering himself to be a genetic orphan can finally gain the information needed to dodge potentially fatal health developments.
A replacement birth certificate may lead one to a point of pride regarding where their family originates.
For example, the names listed on a birth record may lead a budding genealogist to discover, with the assistance of some research, that they are distantly related to a person who is famous, or who finally solves a genetic mystery that has puzzled the family.
Having obtained a copy of a lost birth certificate, one may even trace their roots back to a nation or culture they previously never identified with.
Some are comforted by a belief that all humans are related and thus are family, while other people grow up without any close relatives and deeply treasure the knowledge that they share blood with anyone.
It becomes easier to accept strangers as family if one can identify with at least one person as a blood relative, and this is possible with the acquisition of a previously lost birth certificate.