Vital Records

Our Vital Records include birth, death, and marriage index data sourced from state and city vital records offices and health departments. These records document major life events as recorded by government agencies.

• Coverage All 50 States (availability varies by record type and date)
• Records 450+ Million vital record indexes
• Sources State/City Vital Records Offices, Health Departments
• Legal Basis State vital records statutes, public records laws (varies by state)

What Are Vital Records?

Vital records are official government documents that register the fundamental life events of a population: births, deaths, marriages, and divorces. These records serve as the foundational documents of civil identity, providing legal proof of when and where a person was born, who their parents are, whom they married, and when they died. Vital records are maintained by state and local government agencies and form one of the oldest and most important categories of public records in the United States.

The practice of vital records registration in America predates the founding of the nation itself. Colonial-era churches and town clerks recorded baptisms, burials, and marriages in local registers, and some of these records survive today as invaluable historical and genealogical resources. Formal government-mandated vital registration began in individual states during the nineteenth century, with Massachusetts establishing the first statewide registration system in 1841. By the early twentieth century, the federal government began working toward a national vital statistics system, and by 1933 all states had adopted laws requiring the registration of births and deaths.

Today, the vital records system in the United States is decentralized, with each state operating its own vital statistics office (often within the state health department) that oversees the registration, storage, and issuance of vital records. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), collects and publishes aggregate vital statistics data from all states, providing national-level data on births, deaths, marriages, and divorces that is used for public health research, policy planning, and demographic analysis.

Types of Vital Records

Birth Certificates are issued when a child is born and record the date, time, and place of birth, the child's name, and the names of the parents. Birth certificates come in two forms: the long-form certificate, which includes all recorded details such as the hospital, attending physician, and parents' biographical information, and the short-form certificate (also called a certification of birth or abstract), which contains only the essential identifying information. Birth certificates are the primary documents used to establish identity and citizenship, and they are required for obtaining Social Security numbers, passports, driver's licenses, and school enrollment.

Death Certificates are issued when a person dies and record the date, time, place, and cause of death, along with the decedent's biographical information including name, date of birth, occupation, and place of residence. Death certificates serve critical legal functions, including enabling the settlement of estates, triggering life insurance payouts, and terminating government benefits. They also serve vital public health purposes, as cause-of-death data is aggregated to track disease trends, identify public health emergencies, and allocate healthcare resources.

Marriage Certificates (or marriage licenses and returns) document the legal union of two individuals. Marriage records typically include the names of both spouses, their dates of birth, the date and location of the ceremony, and the name of the officiant. Some jurisdictions also record additional details such as the spouses' occupations, places of residence, and whether either was previously married. Marriage records serve as proof of marital status for legal purposes including tax filing, insurance benefits, immigration proceedings, and property ownership.

Divorce Decrees (or certificates of divorce or dissolution) record the legal termination of a marriage. Divorce records typically include the names of both parties, the date and location of the divorce, the court that issued the decree, and sometimes information about custody arrangements and property division. While the divorce decree itself is a court record, vital statistics offices often maintain a separate index of divorces that provides basic information about each dissolution.

How Vital Records Are Maintained

Vital records are created at the point where life events occur and are filed with local registrars before being forwarded to the state vital statistics office. When a baby is born in a hospital, the hospital's birth registrar prepares the birth certificate using information provided by the parents and medical staff, then files it with the local or county registrar, who forwards it to the state. When a person dies, the funeral director typically initiates the death certificate, which is completed by the attending physician or medical examiner with cause-of-death information and then filed with the state through the local registrar.

Marriage records follow a similar path. A couple obtains a marriage license from the county clerk or equivalent office in the jurisdiction where they plan to marry. After the ceremony, the officiant signs the license and returns it to the issuing office, where it is recorded and a marriage certificate is issued. The county then reports the marriage to the state vital statistics office. Divorce records originate in the court system, with the court that grants the divorce reporting the decree to the state vital statistics office.

State vital statistics offices maintain the official repository of all vital records for the state, storing original certificates and issuing certified copies upon request. Many states have digitized their vital records, creating electronic databases that facilitate searching, cross-referencing, and statistical analysis. However, older records -- particularly those predating the mid-twentieth century -- may exist only in paper form in state and county archives, and some historical records have been lost to fires, floods, and other disasters over the centuries.

The National Center for Health Statistics coordinates the national vital statistics system by working with state vital statistics offices to standardize data collection, establish uniform certificate formats, and compile national statistics. The NCHS publishes annual vital statistics reports that provide detailed data on birth rates, death rates, leading causes of death, marriage and divorce rates, and other demographic indicators that are widely used by researchers, policymakers, and public health professionals.

Public vs. Restricted Vital Records

The accessibility of vital records varies significantly depending on the type of record, its age, and the laws of the state that issued it. This distinction between public and restricted records is crucial for understanding what information is available through OpenDataUSA and other vital records databases.

Birth certificates are generally the most restricted type of vital record. Most states limit access to certified copies of birth certificates to the person named on the certificate, their parents, legal guardians, or other individuals with a demonstrated legal need. However, birth index data -- which typically includes only the name, date of birth, and county of registration -- is often publicly available, particularly for older records. Many states designate birth records as public after a specified period, commonly 75 to 100 years from the date of birth, recognizing that the privacy concerns that justify restricting access diminish as the individuals involved pass away.

Death records are generally more accessible than birth records. Many states treat death indexes as public records and make them freely available for research purposes. The Social Security Administration's Death Master File, which contains records of reported deaths of Social Security cardholders, has historically been a widely used public resource for death verification, though access restrictions were tightened in 2011 and 2013. State death indexes typically include the decedent's name, date of death, date of birth, and county of death, with full death certificates containing cause-of-death information generally restricted to authorized requestors.

Marriage and divorce records fall somewhere between birth and death records in terms of accessibility. Marriage licenses are often considered public records since they are issued by county clerks as part of the public record of the court. Many counties and states publish marriage indexes online or provide them upon request. Divorce records are court records and are generally accessible through the court system, though some jurisdictions seal certain portions of divorce proceedings to protect sensitive information about children, finances, or domestic violence.

Historical Vital Records for Genealogy

Historical vital records are among the most valuable resources for genealogical research, providing direct evidence of family relationships, dates, and locations that form the backbone of a family tree. Before government-mandated vital registration became universal in the early twentieth century, researchers must rely on a combination of church records, town clerk registers, family bibles, newspaper announcements, and census records to document births, marriages, and deaths in earlier periods.

Several organizations have undertaken massive digitization and indexing projects that have made historical vital records far more accessible to researchers. FamilySearch, operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has digitized and indexed billions of vital records from around the world and makes them available for free online. Ancestry.com provides a commercial platform with extensive collections of digitized vital records, census records, and other genealogical resources. Both organizations have partnered with state and local government archives to preserve and digitize historical records that might otherwise deteriorate or be lost.

When using historical vital records for genealogy research, it is important to understand the limitations of these records. Spelling of names was not standardized in earlier eras, and the same individual's name may be recorded differently on different documents. Dates may be approximate, particularly for births that occurred at home without medical attendance. Some populations were systematically undercounted or excluded from vital registration systems, including enslaved persons before the Civil War, Native Americans, and immigrant communities. Despite these limitations, vital records remain the single most authoritative source for documenting the fundamental life events that define family history.

How to Obtain Certified Copies

While OpenDataUSA provides vital record index data for research and informational purposes, certified copies of vital records -- the official documents that carry legal weight -- must be obtained from the issuing government agency. Each state has its own vital statistics office that processes requests for certified copies of birth, death, marriage, and divorce records.

Requests can typically be made in person at the state or county vital records office, by mail with a completed application form and appropriate fee, or online through the state's vital records website or authorized third-party ordering services like VitalChek. Applicants generally must provide identifying information about the person named on the record, their relationship to that person, and the reason for the request. Valid government-issued photo identification is usually required, and fees vary by state but typically range from $10 to $30 per certified copy.

Processing times vary from same-day service for in-person requests to several weeks for mail-in requests. Many states offer expedited processing for an additional fee. For records from earlier eras, researchers may need to contact the county registrar or state archives rather than the current vital statistics office, as older records may not have been incorporated into modern databases.

Frequently Asked Questions