Are there public birth, marriage, death records in the USA?

Question

Sorry for the dumb question from a dumb French.

In France, primary sources for birth, marriage and death records are public registries, mandatory since Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts in 1539. Until 1792, those registries were under the responsability of the (catholic) Church, and since the Revolution, maintained by the état-civil office of each commune.

Most of those registries have been preserved from the turmoils of history, and are now available on-line and for free for most of France départements, courtesy of public archives, at least for people born before 1920.

As I understand from the few American profiles I've started to look at in some details, there is no such facility in the US, and on American  profiles most sources are quoted through  a private genealogy service such as Ancestry or FamilySearch.

Is it really the only way to search and link to records in the USA? For example if I want to find out more about the linked profile, e.g., birth place and parents, where should I start?

Disclaimer : I've tried to find out in the Help pages, but they lack a "Sources 101 - for dummy foreigners" section

Answer 1

There is no single national repository in America.  Vital records are maintained by states and counties.  Most states make information available after a certain number of years, but not necessarily on their own site. A few states have created their own searchable databases (Missouri and Oklahoma are two), but the public infomation varies.  FamilySearch (free) and other aggregators are the easiest places to search.

Comments

Thanks to confirm this, Kathie. In France there is no single national repository either, the on-line publication of registries is made by the Archives Départementales, and by the City Archives for major towns. There is also a national data base for deaths after 1970.

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The Missouri Secretary of State has online death records from 1910 to 1970 online, at: https://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/Archives/ArchivesMvc/DeathCertificates

The Illinois Secretary of State has online marriage database of marriages from 1763 to 1900.  Does not contain an actual image of the marriage record but gives the name of groom and bride, date and place of marriage.  Database is at: https://apps.ilsos.gov//isavital/marriagesrch.jsp

I'm sure there are others, you just have to search for them.

Answer 2

Link to a resource for addresses and information for ordering vital records from each state in the USA. Generally it is best to have information from an index (such as those at FamilySearch or the pay genealogy sites) before making an order.

Comments

Often in records, names normally spelt with an apostrophe, aren't.  (Some jurisdictions actually forbade it - and accented names such as Renée were rendered Renee (which is a different name).)

If the person used O'Neill, then regard Oneill as a clerical thing, and others as variants, or errors.

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If that is her, I found some other possible records.

What happened in my previous message is I found a marriage record for a different Anna M. O'Neill. Unfortunately, it is a relatively common name. And, yes, there will be multiple spellings in the records. Makes things interesting!

Index of Birth Certificate

1900 Census 

1910 Census

1920 Census

1930 Census

Social Security Death Index

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How about this obituary from Newspaper.com?

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Is this article for your August Erspamer?

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WOW . I had a quick look at all those sources and this is just great. But it's awfully late here and I need to sleep. Will be back at it in the morning. Feel free to add whatever you see fit to the profiles.

And many thanks for that.

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I found a better image for the marriage record of Suzanne and August at Ancestry.com.

The sharing link

The subscriber's link

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Nelda, I have improved Anna Erspamer profile based on the sources you provided. Since it's my first time editing an American profile, could you have a look and tell me if it's OK by US standards?

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Bernard, it is good. I'm glad to see the sources and information added to Anna's profile.

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Thanks. But now I'm down the rabbit hole. She had a quite large family ... But it's a good exercise for me to understand US sourcing from the inside. It's much easier in France, definitely!

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BTW you are 19 steps from Suzanne Gardahaut through either of her husbands :

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Connection&action=connect&person1Name=Gardahaut-1&person2Name=Gilchrist-1197

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Connection&action=connect&person1Name=Gardahaut-1&person2Name=Gilchrist-1197&ignoreIds=3100551

Answer 3

It depends on which record and the certain decade (sometimes on the 5th year, like for example 1935.) If you are looking for ancestors, there might be some information on FamilySearch or Ancestry. (note that FamilySearch Is a free website and only privitieses public information of living people ) Or if you're looking for your parents who might have been born around the 1950s, you whould have to wait until next year or you could use Census.gov to request a census on your parents. I hope this could help you.