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:
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.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1.3 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.