Discovering Birth Records
Types of genealogy records that may list a birth date
Many U.S. States did not keep birth records until recent years. If birth certificates are not available, where do you go next? Generally, the next place to look for birth information is in any record that might have recorded the birth. For birth information, the following types of records may be helpful:
- Death records
- Marriage records
- Church records
- Bible records
- Cemetery records
- Obituary records
- Newspaper records
- Census records
- Biographies
- Naturalization and citizenship records
- School records
In many cases, the birth date can only be calculated from an age or assumed age in another record. However, just because you can't find a birth record does not mean that you won't be able to find someone's parents. It simply means that you will need to dig a bit deeper into other types of records in order to find out more.
Here are a few case studies where a birth record was not available, but an individual's family was still located using other record sources.
- Finding the family of a woman without a birth or marriage record that listed names of her parents (Brick Wall Case Studies 2)
- Finding the family of a man when birth and marriage records were lost in a fire (Brick Wall Case Studies 11)
- Finding a man's family when there were no vital or census records that named his parents (Brick Wall Case Studies 12)
- Discovering a man's family when only a census record with his last name and initals had been located (Brick Wall Case Studies 19)
- Locating a man's family when there were no birth records kept and he hadn't been located in census records with parents (Brick Wall Case Studies 22)
Need help finding more records? We have genealogy research services available. You can also try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1.3 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.
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