Trying to find information on someone born in Sacramento, CA?

Question

I'm doing research into my family tree. I have a relative that was born in Sacramento, CA in 1886 but I don't know the specific place. How do I begin to find their birth registration?

I have no idea where he died so I wouldn't know where to look for a death certificate.

Answer 1

To locate someone who died in California, you might want to try to locate them through the California Death Index, if you think that they lived past 1940. It will list their date of birth, but not their place of birth, but the information is such that you can order the death certificate from the county and get the place of birth from the certificate. Here is the link

http://vitals.rootsweb.com/ca/death/search.cgi

If they died in California before 1940, you aren't out of luck. There is a death index maintained by Vital Search that you can access that goes back to 1905. You will need to get a "Guestpass" from the site to look at it, but again, the information is FREE!! Here is the site

http://www.vitalsearch-ca.com/gen/ca/_vitals/cadeathm.htm

One of these should help if your subject died in California past the age of 19. If you need some help, feel free to E-mail me through my profile. I hope this helps! Greetings.

Answer 2

Not to be mean, Dragon, but your question seems to contradict yourself. You say you don't know the place, but then list Sacramento? Don't know if you meant the city or county, but that narrows it down fairly well. Aside from that, I am not certain that you are going to find a registration of any "legal" kind except in later records that reflect back.
From your wording, maybe you are talking about a dad who disappeared after family split up? Or not...
I don't have a subscription to ancestry, but you might use their free trial to see what you can find in the 1930, 1920 census. It would definitely help if you have a county, per knowing something about kids (if there are any). I am going for the last KNOWN place, as being the best to start hunting. If there was a divorce, you may find a remarriage in that counties' records. Long shot, of course.
Do you know names of any siblings? Can you locate their specific death dates/ locations? With that, you might track down obituaries for them, in hopes that he is listed as living in a certain place on that date. Same goes for his parents.
ONE more suggestion is the family files at www.rootsweb.com. If a common name, you might try hunt the surname, go for the advanced option and filter for anyone of that surname who either was born or died in Sacramento. Work it both ways, since lots of people leave that blank. IF you luck out to find several files for same family, be SURE to explore all the files, since some have better details that others.
Unfortunately, most of what you want will hinge on finding the more recent, which would be the death. Sometimes it pops up, other times it is almost unfindable.

Answer 3

A birth year of 1886 means that was probably prior vital statistics were kept, depending on the place. Go for the death certificate which should show the information you want. Don't be surprised if most people were still born at home.

Answer 4

In addition to the other resources the other answerers gave you, I will suggest you go to the Sacramento City website, which lists an enormous amount of local resources, to see if there is still a department of public records. It used to be in the basement of the courthouse, but the City of Sacramento changed the names of a lot of things like that in 1996, so you may have to email someone on the website, or call the city operator, for more specific information.

Answer 5

you can try the 1890 census. If you know the name of the relative. They would appear as being four or five years old.
On Ancestry.com go to the census portion, enter 1890 census, than the state, the the name. It should bring it right up.