how do i view birth certificates or vital records?

Answer 1

Hey Fire on the Prarie,

Birth Certificates can be obtained by the keeper Vital Records for your Town, City, County, State, or Country. The least expensive place to get these records is the town or municipality where you were born. Those local records do get sent to the higher forms of government records keeping agencies, but they get more money usually.

Search using YAHOO Search for "VITAL RECORDS " to find the place to look for them. Usually there is a form, and process to follow. Send in the check with the form (following the instructions), and you get the record.

Here are some places you can look for additional help.

Answer 2

Birth Records Search Database - http://BirthRecords.neatprim.com

Answer 3

The answer to your question depends on the location of the vital records and the time period in which you're interested.

For example, in Massachusetts, you can view vital records created after 1915 at the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics in Dorchester. To view earlier records you have to go elsewhere. Records up through 1915 are at the Massachusetts State Archives on the UMass campus in South Boston. Records up through 1910 can be viewed online at the website of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS). Access to view all these records is unrestricted and you can view the records at the above sources without paying a per-copy fee, although there are fees to conduct research at the Registry of Vital Statistics and at the NEHGS. The records are also held by town clerks in Massachusetts (not the county clerks - in New England the records are held at the town level but in other states the records are held at the county level). However, the town clerks will not generally let you see the records without first purchasing a copy of the record.

The situation is different in other states. For example, in New York, state law restricts birth certificates for 75 years after the event, marriage certificates for 50 years, and death certificates for 50 years after the event. In addition to the time restrictions, the people named on the certificate must be deceased. There is no state facility for viewing certificates - you must pay for a copy of each record and wait for it to be sent to you. You can, however, view the indexes for free at the New York State Archives in Albany, although the indexes are subject to the same time restrictions mentioned above. The only exception to the time restrictions is if you are the subject of the record or a direct relation of the subject of the record. Vital records in New York are also available at the county clerk's office in each county, but the policies regarding time restrictions will probably be the same in the county clerk's office as in the state office.

Other states are even more restrictive. Florida restricts all birth certificates to three people: the child named on the record (and only if the child is over 18 years of age) and the parents named on the record.

Some states have provided online access to vital records. Arizona has images of birth records from 1887-1930 and images of death records from 1878-1955 online for free.

For more details on the availabilty of vital records from US states go to http://www.stephendanko.com/US_Vital_Records.html (right now only Alabama through North Carolina are llisted).

Vital records from many parts of the world can be viewed on microfilm through your local family history center. You can check the catalog at http://www.familysearch.org to see if the Genealogical Society of Utah has microfilmed the records of interest.

For the UK, many of the indexes to vital records have been transcribed and some have been digitized. You can view these at http://www.freebmd.org.uk .

In the UK, you can also obtain copies of vital records at the General Records Office. For England and Wales, visit http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/ . For Northern Ireland, visit http://www.groni.gov.uk/ . For Scotland, visit http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/ . For the Republic of Ireland, visit http://www.groireland.ie/ .

Obviously, this list can go on forever. If you have questions about obtaining vital records from a specific county, town, state, or country, post a new question with the specific details of the location and time period in which you're interested and you'll get responses more tailored to your needs.

Answer 4

The only way I know is to order them from the county or parish of birth/marriage/death.

If you have an ancestry.com account, they might have records scanned and on file.

Answer 5

Your county clerks office will have those records for a small fee.