Vital records such as births, deaths, and marriages are important sources of genealogical information. This category features indexes to these records and, in some cases, images of the actual record.
Many genealogy researchers start their research at home, collecting valuable information from family Bibles, scrapbooks, letters, and the backs of photos. Other helpful research materials include state and county.
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Birth Records
The birth record contains valuable information about an ancestor, including the child’s and parents’ names. It also indicates the place and date of birth. These records are essential for genealogy research and establishing family lines. Genealogical researchers can access birth records through state government offices or an online service. Some states limit who can request birth certificates and when, so research should be done before ordering a record.
Birth records can be challenging to find, especially for older ancestors. Many states didn’t require registration of births until well into the 1900s. Before that, a delivery might be recorded in church records or by a neighbor or relative. It’s best to start researching other sources before searching for a birth record, such as death and marriage records or obituaries.
When delving into family history research, individuals often wonder how to look up birth records, a crucial step in tracing and documenting their ancestral lineage.
A good starting point is to check the local newspaper archives for notices of births, deaths, and marriages. You can also search the internet for genealogy databases or family tree websites. It has state and county wikis that can be useful for finding additional resources. Alternatively, you can contact a professional genealogist or researcher. There is a fee for these services. To receive a certified copy of a birth certificate, you must send a letter with the correct form of ID to the state agency.
Death Records
Most genealogists rely on death records for clues to the deceased’s past. Aside from the apparent date of death, they provide information like parents’ names, spouses, children, and burial place.
Typically, they also give the cause of death, which can be helpful if the ancestor passed away due to an illness. In that case, knowing their ailment can help you search for medical records and other resources to learn more about the health condition that caused them to pass.
Like birth certificates, death records are considered a primary source. However, they are based on information from an informant who might not have been close to the deceased. Therefore, verifying the information in other sources before using it for research is essential.
As with birth records, privacy laws vary from state to state and may affect the availability of death certificates for a certain number of years after the deceased’s death. If that is the case, you can still use other resources to find the information you need, such as searching for your ancestor’s name in newspaper articles. Also, many libraries, historical societies, and churches have indexes to obituaries that can be helpful. You can also contact the city or county where your ancestor died to inquire about their death records.
Marriage Records
Over the past few decades, volunteers, librarians, and archivists have created indexes to marriage collections made available for free online. These collections include scanned images of marriage licenses, bonds, and certificate records that are searchable by name. These accessible, digitized collections have millions of records in them.
Official birth, death, and marriage records (also known as vital records) are critical genealogical sources of information. However, these vital records are only available in New York State after a specific time. If you cannot find a record, alternative resources for finding this information include family letters and documents, church records, newspaper birth announcements and obituaries, city directories, and family files.
Begin researching vital records by learning when the town or village where your ancestor was born began keeping these records. You can check this in a reference book or a genealogy website’s database.
Some have an extensive collection of records of interest to genealogists, including federal census, court and naturalization records, passports, and other immigration and naturalization files. The site also contains valuable guides, catalogs, and other tools to help you plan a visit to the Washington, DC, or regional facility or research from home.
Obituaries
Obituaries are posthumous news stories that give a snapshot of an individual’s life and are packed with helpful information for genealogical research. Genealogists can learn about relatives, their place of birth and death, occupations, fraternal organization affiliations, community volunteer work, religion, and other facts that help them build their family tree.
Obits can also be valuable leads for other research. For example, suppose a person died in the hospital or suffered an accident just before the date of their obituary. In that case, newspaper articles might be detailing these circumstances that may lead you to other data sources like medical records and additional news reports.
An excellent place to find obituaries is the internet. There are many online resources to search, including obituary indexes and sites that contain full-text newspaper articles (though they are often indexed only up through the late 1960s or 1970s). You can also search for obituaries at public libraries, historical societies, and archives. These collections are typically indexed and can be searched by name.
In addition, some more extensive genealogy databases contain obituaries from selected newspapers.
