The US Dept of State's Office of Authentication told me that there are 2-3 week delays with document authentication processing due to anthrax screening of all incoming mail.

I am trying to get a US birth certificate(my daughter was born in New Jersey 1 year ago) authenticated by the US dept of State's Authentication office, but have found out that you must get the NJ Secretary of State to Authenticate the birth certificate first (the NJ cert costs $25 per certificate and if you want expedited service it costs $40 per)

I chose to go through the process with four certificates so i wouldn't have to deal with the hassle again for a long time (be in Thailand by then). It even gets a little more complicated than this, since the NJ Secretary of State will not accept birth certificates issued by local county authorities, but only those issued by the NJ Office of Vital Statistics in Trenton, NJ.

Once I get the US State Depts authentication , the Thai Consulate in NY will accept the US certificates for the purposes of a Thai Birth Certificate application .

Once I get the US State Depts authentication , the Thai Consulate in NY will accept the US certificates for the purposes of a Thai Birth Certificate application .

thai birth certificate? do you mean thai passport?

Once I get the US  State Depts authentication , the Thai Consulate in NY will accept the US certificates for the purposes of a Thai Birth Certificate application . 

thai birth certificate? do you mean thai passport?

Actually you need to get a Thai Birth Certificate in order to get the Thai passport.

So the official NJ State Birth Certificate is certified by the NJ Secretary of State. Then this is authenticated by the US Department of State (Office of Authentication) which will be accepted by the Thai Consulate for the purposes of issuing a Thai Birth Certificate. The Marriage Record(authenticated by the Secretary of State of Ohio, since we were married in Ohio) is needed for my Non-Immigrant O visa, Thai Birth Certificate for our American born daughter, and her Thai Passport(according to instructions on the Thai Embassy, DC web site). In any event the marriage certificates(authenticed by US DoS) are required for the Thai Passport for our daughter

You should make that trip down to see your brother in DC then!

Good luck