Keeping your Kentucky birth certificate and other important documents safe in your home is important. While many documents you can replace, it can be a hassle and it’s much easier to keep them safe in the first place.

Safety Deposit Boxes: Movies lead you to believe this is just where people stash stolen jewelry or fake passports, but safety deposit boxes are the safest place to store paperwork. In addition to your birth certificate, other documents you want to keep safe include marriage certificates, death certificates, citizenship records, deeds, titles, wills, bonds, and stock certificates. By storing them in a safety deposit box, you can prevent the possibility of these documents being stolen by a burglar at your home or them being damaged in a flood or fire. The cost of renting a safety deposit box can be inexpensive and it gives you privacy and security. It’s important to note that safety deposit boxes are sealed after the death of the box holder so heirs may not have access to that legal information. It’s also important to keep track of your safety deposit box since it can be easy to forget about it. If you move cities, it will require some additional planning.

Home Safe: Since you will need to make sure you can always gain access to a safety deposit box, it helps to have a home safe as well. In a home safe, you want to keep information about the safety deposit box and how to access it, along with contact information for your insurance agent, financial planner, bank, and lawyer. You will also want to store documents and records you need to access more often. This can include your Social Security card, tax information, passport, insurance policies, education and health records, and loan information. The home safe is also a good place to keep a copy of documents such as your birth certificate or driver’s license. These can be pieces of ID that will be needed if you lose the original.

Secure Online Storage: The Internet can be a useful place to store important information. There are sites that serve as online safety deposit boxes that will allow you to manage your documents from a phone or tablet. The obvious advantage of this approach is convenience and you can easily access and update files from the phone and store physical files by taking a photo.

It’s likely you will want to use a combination of these methods to store your important documents. If you are trying to preserve an older birth certificate, it’s important to handle it with care since they can be delicate. Documents can be vulnerable to various types of damage, and sunlight, moisture, and heat can ruin the structural integrity of the document.

Jennifer Sesco