After skeptics such as business mogul Donald Trump brought questions surrounding President Obama’s birthplace back to the forefront ahead of next year’s election, the White House on Wednesday morning released a certified copy of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate showing he indeed was born in Hawaii.

The move comes several years after then-Sen. Obama’s campaign posted on the Internet a copy of his official “certificate of live birth” in 2008 to quell theories that he was not born in the United States. While that document, the standard proof of birth in Hawaii, satisfied many observers, others, such as Mr. Trump, have called for the longer-form birth certificate to be released from the Hawaii State Department of Health...