For most American born children of Portuguese citizens, you should be able to order an official certified birth certificate from the town of city in the United States you were born in. All that is needed is a call to the town or city hall to request one (from the crabby lady who has lost all sense of how to interact politely with other humans) or Google search to find an appropriate online order form to fill out. If you are lucky, you can just visit the town or city hall during work hours and pick one up in person (directly from the crabby lady).
There will be some cost to obtain the birth certificate copy. Maybe in the $10 to $20 range. Check to make sure if the payment is to be in cash, check or other.
When ordering a copy of your birth certificate, make sure that the it is a long form and not the short form. The long form should contain information like the time, date and place of birth, parent's names, and a signature and stamp from the appropriate authority in the town or city.
I ran into a situation where the long form birth certificate from my birth city did not have the time of birth noted on the certificate. Unfortunately for me I only discovered this problem after I turned my birth certificate in at the Portuguese Consulate. I had to order the appropriate one not through the City, but through the State of Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics.
What is interesting is that the Registry of Vital Records does not handle online orders, but rather it is this company called VitalCheck. You can hand over $45 to them and they will process the order with the Registry of Vital Records which will take a couple of weeks. During the checkout process, you can have your birth certificate copy snail mailed over for free, or if you are crunched for time you can get expedited handling and shipping for a large happy fee.
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