How To - Vital Records

How To - Vital Records

Vital records are some of the most essential resources to utilize when researching Kentucky ancestors. Finding your great-grandfather’s birth record may finally shed light on who his parents were and allow you to continue your search. Most vital records can be the first step in your family research. How can vital records help you?

                What exactly are these three types of vital records, and how do they work? Birth, marriage, and death records can tell you many things about your ancestor and their family. They can provide names for your ancestor, their parents, or even their children. You may learn the name of your ancestor’s spouse, along with the date and location of their marriage. Even death records can provide you with the date and location of your ancestor’s death.

Vital records can be a little tricky to work with in some ways because Kentucky did not begin recording births or deaths in an official capacity until 1852. On top of that, Kentucky’s recording of vital records between 1852 and 1910 had periods of discontinuation that made this period very sporadic when it comes to vital records. Courthouses burning down or losing records by other means, along with the disruptions of the Civil War in the 1860s, created significant gaps in the recording of vital records during this period.

Birth records are sometimes the first record that a person seeks out when starting out on their family research journey. Most of these types of records will be formatted in a list or register style. The information you can typically find in a birth record include the name of the child, the location of their birth, the birth date, the names of their parents, and other useful pieces of information.

Figure 1: Bracken County Birth Record

Marriage records are another type of vital record that can provide useful information and can be a little easier to look for as they were recorded before 1852. There can also be different types of documents that can fall under the marriage record banner. Some records you might find that have marriage information include marriage bonds, registers, consents, and minster returns. These examples can provide you with marriage information such as the name of your ancestor’s spouse, the date of marriage, the county the marriage took place in, or even possibly the names of witnesses who may be related to your ancestor in some way.

Figure 2: Franklin County Marriage Return

Figure 3: Fayette County Marriage License and Certificate

The final type of vital record are death records such as a certificate or death register. Like birth records, death records were not officially recorded before 1852. This makes searching for death information about ancestors challenging. Kentucky ancestors who died between 1852 and 1910 may have had a death record created for them. Finding a death record for an ancestor can provide an abundance of information. Information that may be found in a death record includes the name of who died, death date, location of death, age at time of death, names of parents, and other important information. There are some instances where the cause of an ancestor’s death may be discovered.

Figure 4: Franklin County Death Record

Vital records can also point family researchers toward other useful sources. Names or locations found in these documents may lead a searcher to additional counties or an ancestor’s relatives. It is often helpful to check vital records from surrounding counties as well, in case an ancestor moved across county lines or boundaries shifted during their lifetime.

Interestingly, some individuals who were born between 1890-1910 did apply for delayed birth certificates. Sometimes it can be beneficial to search for your ancestor through this means, especially if the county your ancestor was born in did not record births the year your ancestor was born.

Even if a birth or death record does not exist for a particular ancestor, there is a chance that alternate records may include the birth or death information needed. Cemetery records, church records, newspaper announcements, obituaries, and many other types of documents can be useful if a birth or death record are not available.

It is important to take the information found from vital records and compare it with other records or documents to ensure everything aligns - dates, locations, names, ages, and other details fit together and make sense. They can be extremely valuable to family research, and when combined with other key records, they create a strong foundation for understanding your ancestors.

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Images were taken and provided by the author.