Bay City woman gets her first birth certificate, issued 81 years after her birth

It took 81 years and five months to get one, but now Bay City’s Mary Ann Wiesen can celebrate. She has her first birth certificate. “I was elated,” she said. “I share it with everyone I can. I’m just so excited to be acknowledged.” It wasn’t easy, though. Wiesen fought months of government red tape to prove she was born on June 5, 1930, at her family’s home in Massillon, Ohio, about 60 miles south of Cleveland. She didn’t receive a birth certificate, a common practice at the time for children born at home. For 65 years, Wiesen used a court affidavit, in which family members swore to her birth, as the official legal document to obtain everything from her marriage license to her GED to her Social Security checks.

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