Birth Certificate

Is a quote describing birth certificates as enslaving tools really found in Woodrow Wilson's private papers or those of his adviser Edward Mandell House? No, that's not true: Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library staff said they found no such quote in their archive. A spokesperson for the library that holds House's papers told Lead Stories they found no reference to…

Is the United States "the only country" with birthright citizenship? No, that's not true: Dozens of countries, most of which are in the Western Hemisphere, have similar laws regarding birthright citizenship, according to the CIA World Factbook. The statement was made in a December 2024 interview with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, but he has said the same thing as far…

Did presidential candidate Kamala Harris lie about having a Black grandmother, because the woman she identifies in her autobiography as her grandmother died four years before Harris was born? No, that's not true: Two women -- one of whom would become Harris' grandmother -- with similar first names were born in the same district of Jamaica around the same time.…

Does a "certificate of birth" supposedly from Jamaica prove that Kamala Harris was not born in the United States, therefore making her ineligible to be president? No, that's not true: She was born in Oakland, California, in Alameda County in 1964, as verified copies of her birth certificate show. A purported Jamaican document in a social media post is not…

Did 2 million voters register without a photo ID in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Texas during the first three months of 2024? No, that's not true: Election officials from these three states told Lead Stories that this figure from a social media post does not represent the number of new voters actually registered in their states without a photo ID during…

Are Javier Milei, president of Argentina, and Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, related, and is this assertion based on a shared familial last name? No, that does not seem to be true: There is no evidence that the two political leaders share a familial surname. Milei's last name is the same as it appears on his birth certificate; it…

Do answers by Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa provide proof of the birth-certificate-bond conspiracy theory? No, that's not true: Alexa produces answers gathered from a variety of sources, and in some instances can be gamed to provide inaccurate information. Amazon told Lead Stories that it was not able to duplicate the responses given in the social-media post about the birth-certificate-bond conspiracy…

Did former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley shed her birth name? No, that's not true: Haley, whose birth name is Nimrata (also spelled "Nimarata") Nikki Randhawa, has explained that the middle name on her birth certificate is "Nikki". Like other married women, she changed her last name when she married her husband Michael Haley. The claim…

Is there a new Florida law that says fathers must submit a DNA test before signing a birth certificate? No, that's not true: Florida law "does not require a DNA test prior to signing a birth certificate," a legal expert told Lead Stories. The claim appeared as a post (archived here) on Facebook on August 30, 2023. It opened: New…

Did a preprint paper submitted to The Lancet on July 5, 2023, find that 74 percent of the deaths in the autopsies it reviewed were caused by the COVID-19 vaccine? Additionally, was it also a legitimate study from The Lancet? No, neither is true: The preprint paper never made it past the submission stage with the medical journal because The…