Genealogy Lesson #22: Vital Records in the U.S.

Sorry for the pause in posting online genealogy lessons. Working from home during this world-wide pandemic is much more exhausting than it sounds.

In any case, my last few lessons focused on accessing the New York City Municipal Archives Death Records Indexes through a variety of websites. The hope is that you see that not every index is built the same way. Some are better than others. AND Ancestry.com is not the end-all be-all of genealogical resource websites. There is a lot out there and vital records are critical genealogical resources.

Vital records are birth, marriage, and death records. They only really came into existence in the U.S. in the late 1800s. If you are looking for documentation to verify a birth in the 1600s or 1700s, you’re not going to find a state issued certificate. Nope. Not gonna happen. They didn’t exist. Instead, you would more likely want to look for church registers or family bibles. However, if you can get an existing birth, marriage, or death certificate, they hold an awful lot of detail that can push your research further back.

Now maybe your family did not reside in New York City and thus you are wondering where to look for indexes of vital records for other locations.

You need to know when and where a vital event (birth, marriage, death) occurred in order to locate a certificate. That’s the whole battle. That’s why you need to pay very close attention to the locations presented in the census records you are able to find for your family. Where someone lived is often where these vital events took place. Although, that is not always the case. Sometimes they surprise us. Maybe they lived their whole life in New York City and maybe their body is interred in a New York City cemetery but if they died in some accident in New Jersey or while in some nursing home there, then their death certificate will be held by the State of New Jersey. Just something to keep in mind.

These days, with all this Coronavirus news, you hear a lot from the CDC. You probably all know it stands for Center for Disease Control. Besides keeping on top of the COVID-19 world health crisis, they have a great webpage listing where to obtain vital records from each state and U.S. territory. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/w2w/index.htm I use it all the time.

Even though the webpage is called “Where to Write for Vital Records”, often you are led to a state’s website where records can be ordered online. You usually do not have to actually “write” to anyone.

This ordering of records can become very costly very quickly. You want to be sure you “know” the record you want and that you aren’t just taking really expensive guesses.

How will you KNOW what to order? Leave the ordering until you have exhausted all your research locations.

Next up: Cemeteries as a research location.