Madison County Clerk Mike Kevel urges residents to check birth certificates after middle-name errors

Madison County Clerk Mike Kevel told listeners in a short county message that certified birth certificates ordered from state portals can sometimes show only a middle initial rather than a full middle name, and that affected residents should check local city records for an alternate copy.

Kevel said the problem occurred when a coworker moved out of state and ordered a replacement birth certificate through the New York State Department of Health portal. "The copy he received had reduced his full middle name to just the initial," Kevel said, and that led the Vermont DMV to accept only the initial while the individual was out of state.

Kevel described how the city-issued birth record and the state record can differ: when a certificate from the city of Utica is sent to the state, the information goes into a state data-entry system. "Apparently, in this person's case, that's not what happened, and the person doing the data entry skipped a few letters and put in just the middle initial," he said, noting it may also reflect a system limitation but framing that as speculation.

He advised anyone who finds their middle name truncated on a state-issued certificate to contact the city where they were born and request a certified copy from the local clerk's office; Kevel said that when his coworker ordered a certificate directly from the Utica clerk's office, it included the full middle name. He emphasized this as a practical step rather than a comment on any specific agency policy.

Kevel closed by encouraging listeners to share the information with friends and family who might be affected and to follow up with the local city clerk if they encounter the same issue.