Legal Question in Family Law in Florida

I was born, without the aid of a legal midwife, at home in Hollywood, Florida to a recovering alcoholic woman who, shortly after my birth, relapsed (reverted to severe alcoholism) and fled town. My birth wasn't recorded or reported to vital statistics, so I've haven't ever owned a birth certificate. She left me with a lonely old Hispanic woman who helped conceive me and helped my mother maintain sobriety during childbearing. I stayed with that poor old woman until she passed when I became sixteen. Because we were in a crime-laden ghetto of Hollywood, she was afraid of me ever leaving her sight and she never enrolled me in public school (I thus have no educational record). She new English extraordinarily well so she herself was able to school me for some time.

Since her passing, I met a retired elderly man who has allowed me to stay with him in exchange for general labor in and around his home. This has been my only option as I don't own a birth certificate, so I couldn't possibly obtain a Social Security Number, state ID card, or passport. I now am twenty and I want to earn a GED, get a real job, buy a car, attend college, and live my life as most people, but I don't have a single legal document that identifies me and I know no one who can validate my existence as a natural born US citizen. I've tried to track my mother but finding her woud be unlikely; as I was told, her alcoholism nearly killed her on several occassions, and because she relapsed, I don't expect her chances of survival to have been very high. I have no relatives.

I believe that I should go to my county's health department in order to get a birth certificate, but I'm certain that they would expect me to bring documentation, none of which I've ever had. How should I proceed?

Stanley Heart

1 Answer from Attorneys

Related Questions & Answers

More Family Law, Divorce, Child Custody and Adoption questions and answers in Florida

Looking for something else?