My boss was looking for something yesterday, mentioned that he's real bad about losing things, and added that that's why he can't prove that he's a U.S. citizen.
So, here's the story. His dad was in the CIA. My boss was born in Italy and lived all over Europe and Africa as a boy. His parents got divorced when he was a teenager and he moved to the U.S. for the first time with his mom. He said his mom gave him his birth certificate after he turned 18 and, being bad about losing things, he'd lost track of it before he even got back to his house.
The first time he attempted to replace it was only a few years ago. He learned that, in the interim, the hospital he was born in had flooded, the old embassy had burned to the ground, and all records of his birth were lost. He called the State Department about it and they informed him that he could get a new birth certificate made if he and a parent came to Washington DC and paid a $2500 fee. But by that time, both of his parents were dead.