Births and Deaths in Public Records
Many British and European countries began keeping birth and death records nationally in the nineteenth century. Before then, churches maintained registers of christenings and burials, and colonial settlers in America brought British laws and customs with them. Thus, churches were initially the sole keepers of vital records; ministers in many colonies were required by law to report christenings and burials to civil authorities. In some areas, consequently, these events are recorded in both civil and church records. Eventually, some colonies, primarily those in New England, passed laws requiring local town or county clerks to maintain records of births and deaths. Massachusetts had the most comprehensive laws pertaining to birth and death registration, and many of its early records have been published.
During the nineteenth century, England and other European countries instituted national registration systems, primarily to compile medical statistics as information on epidemic diseases. The United States did not implement the practice until much later. The majority of the states did not require registration until the first quarter of the twentieth century, and then the responsibility for registering births and deaths was left to the individual states rather than the federal government, accounting for different starting dates and differences in the data called for. The earliest cities to require civil registration were New Orleans (1790), Boston (1848), Philadelphia (1860), Pittsburgh (1870), and Baltimore (1875).
Fourteen states also initiated registration before 1880:
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Contents of Birth Records
Early birth records gave little information beyond the name of the child, date and place of birth, and parents’ names. Some localities listed only the name of the father—particularly in early New England town and church records.
Early birth records are distressingly sparse, with a heavy concentration found in New England only. In the colonial period, church records that can serve as birth records were kept in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia, with Virginia trailing far behind the others. Quaker records for all of the states mentioned above are far superior to most others, providing the exact dates of birth and death for members of that faith. They have been well preserved; many are included in William Wade Hinshaw, Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, 7 vols. (1969. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1991–94), available in most genealogical libraries in the United States. Willard Heiss has expanded coverage for Indiana with seven additional volumes of Quaker entries. These books are also widely available.
By the mid-nineteenth century, birth records in the United States began to include more detailed information. Figure 3-3 is from the birth register of Kanawha County, West Virginia. All Virginia and West Virginia counties used this format beginning in 1853. Some entries in these registers list the mother’s maiden name instead of her married name—obviously helpful information in identifying the maternal ancestry of a child.
Early birth records can be obtained from town or county clerks in the area in which an ancestor was born. These records, too early to fall under the jurisdiction of recent privacy laws, are public records. However, when writing for a birth or death record, state your relationship to the ancestor of interest in case the clerk requires it. Your inquiry should indicate the specific record desired; give the ancestor’s full name and as much identifying information as possible (especially if the ancestor has a common surname). Providing the exact date of birth, if known, or an estimated five-year birth period is especially helpful. The average fee for birth or death records at the county level is seven dollars; send that amount with your request. If additional funds are required, the clerk will either request the balance in advance or send the material and ask you to forward the balance. Most jurisdictions will search their records for a five-year period, but few will search further unless specifically requested to do so.
The Genealogical Society of Utah has microfilmed birth records of thousands of towns and counties throughout the United States, concentrating heavily upon the states east of the Mississippi River. These microfilms are available at the Family History Library and upon request through its family history centers). The printed vital records of New England towns are also available at the Family History Library; those that have been microfilmed can be borrowed through the family history centers). The printed vital records of New England towns are also available at the Family History Library; those that have been microfilmed can be borrowed through the family history centers. Many state and local historical society libraries also have copies, and many of the larger metropolitan city libraries with genealogical collections, such as the New York Public Library and the Los Angeles Public Library, also have copies of these printed records. The Holbrook Research Institute, 57 Locust St., Oxford, MA 01540, has microfiche copies for those Massachusetts towns that were never printed; a price list is available on request.
Even though births were not widely recorded during the early years of America’s existence, those records that do exist may provide the only source of exact birth data for your ancestors. They should always be searched.
Modern (post-1910) birth records are maintained by the states. They are extremely valuable, but many researchers, learning birth information from home sources, fail to obtain birth certificates. This reluctance is most unfortunate and can result in an inaccurate or incomplete family genealogy. Modern birth records contain much more information than earlier records. Although birth certificates vary from state to state, most of them share much information in common.
Most modern birth records are protected by the privacy laws passed by the federal government during recent years. However, some states have allowed microfilming of births after masking entries for illegitimate and stillborn births.
Despite such gaps, these records are obviously useful. Most states require a request form to be completed before they will issue a copy or abstract of a birth certificate. Such a form will often request more information than you have, but you should fill it out as completely as possible, estimating dates and places as accurately as you can. Some states will search more than a five-year period, while others limit the search to a single, approximate year of birth. If the record cannot be found in the year listed, a few states refund the fee; most do not. Each request should state your relationship to the individual and the purpose for which you will use the data. Family history and genealogical research purposes are acceptable reasons in most states.
A rarely used form of birth record is the delayed birth certificate. When Social Security benefits were instituted in 1937, individuals claiming benefits had to document their births even if their states of residence had not required birth registration at the time of their births. The 1880 and 1900 federal census enumerations were partially or fully indexed to help provide this documentation. Another method was to file evidence as part of an application for a delayed birth certificate.
The individual applying had to submit a petition to the county court stating his or her name, address, date and place of birth; father’s name, race, and place of birth; and evidence to support the facts presented. The evidence could be in the form of a baptismal certificate, Bible record, school record, affidavit from the attending physician or midwife, application for an insurance policy, birth certificate of a child, copy of an application for a Social Security account number, or an affidavit from a person having definite knowledge of the facts.
Delayed birth certificates list vital information abstracted from the supporting evidence. Most states have delayed birth records, some of which are indexed and easily usable. Some delayed birth records have been filed for individuals born as early as 1840. These records are usually filed in the county where the individual applied—not in the county of birth. Though relatively uncommon, these records provide information about individuals and their parents for periods when vital records were not widely kept. The records and testimony used as supporting evidence for the document can lead you to other information sources and also show which relatives were living at the time the certificate was applied for.
Families in transition when children were born present a research problem. Often, a family moving when a child was born waited just long enough for the mother to recover and then moved to an adjoining town or state, where the infant’s birth was recorded. In such cases, if you move back in time from the known to the unknown, you will know where the birth was recorded when you may know nothing of where the birth occurred—so check the obvious; find out if the birth was recorded after the fact. The resulting document will give you the actual place of birth, and you can then make searches there also.
Contents of Death Records
Early death records in the United States provide little more than the name of the deceased, the date of death, and the place of death. Burial records contain basically the same information. Occasionally the record will list the name of the deceased’s spouse. These early records appear in town, county, and church records, most extensively in New England, where they were kept as late as 1900.
Death records of the nineteenth century are more detailed in many jurisdictions. They often include the name of the deceased, date, place, and cause of death, age at the time of death, place of birth, parents’ names, occupation, name of spouse, name of the person giving the information, and the informant’s relationship to the deceased. Race is listed in some records. Some southern states also note if the deceased was a slave.
Modern (post-1910) death records, though comparatively recent, are steadily increasing in value. People are living longer, and death records often provide information about birth as well as death.
Modern death certificates have not been standardized throughout the United states; but, like birth certificates, most of them contain the same types of information. They can include the deceased’s name, sex, race, date of death, age at the time of death, place of death, date of birth, place of birth, marital status, name of spouse, Social Security number, occupation, residence, father’s name, mother’s name, cause of death, and place of burial. Records from other states generally provide the birthplace of the deceased’s parents. The Social Security number is not always included, but, when it is, it can be invaluable because other records (subject to right-of-privacy laws) may be accessible if you have the Social Security number.
As any experienced researcher knows, death records are only as accurate as the knowledge of the person who provided the information. Many informants are unaware of the name of parents or are unsure about dates and places of birth. Always try to find additional information about parents and dates and places of birth whenever possible.
In response to a request, some states will supply a photocopy of the certificate filed at the time of death, while some make a transcript of the basic information on a preprinted form, certifying it as a true copy. A photocopy is much preferable. Not only does it eliminate the danger of errors in transcription; it will also include more data. The clues of cemetery, undertaker, informant, residence at time of death, and other details that take you from the death certificate to other records are found only on the original.
Death records are valuable corroborating evidence for family traditions handed down generation after generation without verification. They also help distinguish between two or more people with the same name. Death records, both early and modern, can help you identify others related to the decedent. The information provided in the records is usually given to the authorities by a close relative. If the relative is a married daughter, the record will state her married name. Aunts, uncles, in-laws, cousins, and other relatives are listed as informants on death records. Each new name is a clue to the identity of other ancestors that should be pursued.
The death record informant may not have been the person who provided vital statistics to the funeral director or to the cemetery sexton. The death certificate names both the funeral home and the place of burial, so check both the mortician’s records and the sexton’s records to confirm the information on the death record and to look for additional information not included in the death certificate. Once you know the exact date of death, you can more easily look for an obituary notice in a local newspaper. Obituaries usually at least summarize the deceased’s life, sometimes including other towns of residence. They may also list all of the living heirs, as well as the names of parents, brothers, and sisters. Tracking backward with these clues, you can look for other members of the family and additional historical information.
In short, you should routinely request birth and death records for ancestors who were born or who died during the period for which records are available in a particular locale. They are rich in genealogical information and may serve to clarify discrepancies in family records.
Problems With Vital Records
The use of vital records is not without its difficulties. The problem of informants being unaware of (or not knowing) dates and places of birth when providing death information has already been mentioned. Many record collections are incomplete, necessitating additional searches in other records to fill the gaps.
Legibility is also a problem in many handwritten records. It is sometimes worthwhile to ask for help from someone skilled in reading various types of handwriting when a certificate or register entry is not easily decipherable.
A third problem is that early records may contain a variety of surname spellings—none of them spellings currently used by branches of the family. Early record clerks, like early census enumerators, often spelled people’s names as they heard them pronounced. When looking for birth or death records from earlier periods, consider all possible spellings—especially phonetic spellings—before concluding that no record exists for an ancestor. This is especially important for urban areas, where more than one person having the same name is the rule rather than the exception.
A related problem is that records were often indexed many years after they were compiled. The person doing the indexing had to interpret the handwriting in the record just as the researcher must, and his or her skills may not have been well developed. The obvious errors in indexes are a T read as an F, a P as an R, and an L as an S. Take these possibilities into consideration, too, as you try to determine all the possible spellings of a surname.
Some researchers stop searching if they cannot find an ancestor’s name in an index. But some indexes have an error rate in excess of twenty-five percent, meaning that more than twenty-five percent of the individuals in the indexed records were not included in the index. If you know the approximate date of a birth or death, settle down to a page-by-page search before concluding that your ancestor is not in the records.
Legally restricted access represents an important limitation of modern vital records. Different states regulate in different ways who can have access to vital records and under what circumstances. Some new laws attempt to reduce the assumption of a false identity for fraudulent purposes (for example, assuming the identity of a deceased person to obtain credit cards to be used for defrauding merchants). Other laws protect the privacy of people still living. Regardless of the reasons behind such laws, you should research the access-restriction laws that exist in the states where you will be conducting research.
Finding Aids
There are numerous aids for locating vital records. Appendix F, Where to Write for Vital Records, is a good place to begin. Most towns and counties have indexes to birth and death records. Even if they are not complete, they can often facilitate research. Many local historical and genealogical societies have published birth and death records in their periodicals, newsletters, and journals; they should be examined whenever available. Family members may be able to send photocopies of birth and death records in their possession. It is worth a letter or telephone call to inquire.
Always check for duplicate copies at county, city, town, and state levels. Many counties kept vital records before the states did. After state registration began, counties and cities continued to maintain registers of vital events. If one set of records is lost or incomplete, you can check the other.
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