New York Consolidated Laws, Public Health Law - PBH § 4175. Records;  unrecorded births and deaths

1. If, at any time after the birth, or within one year of the death, of any person within the state, a certified copy of the official record of said birth or death, with the information required to be registered by this article, is necessary for legal, judicial, or other proper purposes, and, after search by the commissioner or his or her representatives, it appears that no such certificate of birth or death was made and filed as provided by this article, then the commissioner shall immediately require the physician, nurse practitioner, or nurse-midwife who, being in attendance upon a birth, failed or neglected to file a certificate thereof, or the funeral director, undertaker, or other person who, having charge of the interment or removal of the body of a deceased person, failed or neglected to file the certificate of death, if he or she is living, to obtain and file at once with the local registrar such certificate in as complete form as the lapse of time will permit.

2. With said delayed certificate shall be filed such statements subscribed and affirmed by the persons making them as true under the penalties of perjury and other evidence as may be required by the commissioner.

3. If the physician, nurse practitioner, nurse-midwife, funeral director, or undertaker responsible for the report is deceased or cannot be located, then the person making application for the certified copy of the record may file such certificate of birth or death together with such statements subscribed and affirmed by the persons making them as true under the penalties of perjury and other evidence as the commissioner may require.

4. The commissioner shall file such certificate and issue a certified copy thereof to said applicant without fee.

5. The delinquent physician, nurse practitioner, nurse-midwife, funeral director, undertaker, or other person may, in the discretion of the commissioner, be prosecuted as required by this article, without bar from the statute of limitations, if he or she neglects or fails to file promptly the certificate required by this section.