Birth Records Search
Confirming Facts and Genealogy with Birth Records
Have you lost touch with a family member, or are you trying to complete your own family tree? Conducting a birth records search can help you learn vital information about family members or other people of interest in your life, such as the date and place of birth, names of their parents and given name at birth of someone you are researching. You can also use this information to confirm someone’s age if you feel they may have been dishonest about it.
Details Found in Birth Records
While researching a person’s birth records you can discover their full given name at birth, which sometimes can change over the course of life through marriages or just via creating aliases. Regardless of whether a name has been changed legally due to a marriage or other reason, an original birth certificate will still contain a given birth name and maiden name.
The date of birth found in birth records will confirm someone’s age, and you can also use such details as the place or county of birth to further research the person’s origins. If you are learning about an ancestor who is no longer living, learning the place of birth may help lead you to marriage records created later in their life or even birth records of their own children if they continued to live where they were born.
The Creation and Maintaining of Birth Records
When someone is born, vital information is recorded by the local county health department and the state’s office of vital statistics. The birth mother is often asked to fill out the baby’s given name, her full name, the father’s full name and their places of residence, marital status and even religious affiliations on a standardized form provided by the health department.
In addition, the doctor or hospital staff will include details such as the date of birth, sex of the baby and place of birth – such as the hospital name and county/state information. These forms are then forwarded to the respective state and county agencies to be officially recorded and filed.
When you want to review information in birth records, you will likely need to contact the local county health department or the state office of vital statistics. Each state has its own privacy laws to protect from identity theft, too, so unless a certain period of time has passed or you are a direct relation to the person named on the birth certificate, it is unlikely you will be given access to all details contained in the birth records.
Using a specialized search engine can quickly scan these birth records and provide you with more information about where they exist; this greatly helps to reduce the time spent researching them and deciphering the requirements to access them for genealogy and other purposes.