Everything You Need to Know about Vital Records for Genealogy

Chapter 13 in The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy, Fourth Edition, by Val D. Greenwood, provides an excellent overview on the availability and use of vital records (births, marriages, deaths, and divorces) in genealogy research. The author offers a brief history on the keeping of official vital records by various government entities. He then explains how to use them in genealogical research, how to obtain copies of the records, and finally the limitations and potential problems with vital records.

Chapter 13 contains several valuable charts and facsimiles that are designed to expedite your understanding and usage of these crucial sources. Following are two of them: (1) Important dates in the history of vital records on a state by state basis, and (2) two pages from a valuable bibliography of vital record inventories for all the states, with their dates of preparation.