welcome to the ancestral findings podcast birth records are some of the first types of records
you may look for when beginning your genealogy research after all most people in the western
world have had some sort of documentation of their birth for the past thousand years
modern birth certificates began being issued between 100 and 150
years ago this is the information you might find on these documents
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one of the first documents you will probably look for as a beginning genealogist is a birth record
for one or more of your ancestors it is a basic genealogical document and one that most people
generated when they were born in some way or another there have been a variety of ways that
births have been recorded over the centuries but for at least the past one thousand years
most countries in the western world have made some attempt to document them it is important after all
to have some official record of a new human being entering the world when you think of birth records
you are probably thinking of the standard birth certificate these have been in use for about a
century maybe a century and a half in western countries you probably have one yourself that
documents your own birth most towns counties states and western nations began requiring
birth certificates that were registered and filed with the local or regional government in the mid
1800s to early 1900s it is likely that you can find standard birth certificates for yourself
and your parents and very possibly your grandparents and even great grandparents
depending when and where they were born and the birth documenting requirements of those places
at those time periods what information might you find on a standard birth certificate
while like most official documents it varies by time and place the following information
can be found on most of the modern style standard birth certificates the full name of the child this
includes the middle name if any middle names can be useful in researching families as family names
were often used as middle names and sometimes still are used that way if you only knew an
ancestor by a middle name or by initials the birth certificate will give you the full official name
the names of the parents the most important bit of information you may get here is the maiden
name of the mother if you did not previously know it if the child was born out of wedlock
or if the father was not known there may be no father's name listed the ages of the parents
if you did not have this information now you do it is helpful in looking up other records
regarding the parents of this particular child the location and time of the birth
knowing the location of the birth can give you a clue as to where to look for other family members
in that line knowing the time of birth is just cool and makes a neat addition to your family tree
the name of the delivering doctor you might be able to use this name to find other family members
that the doctor delivered if the child was not born with the assistance of a doctor the name of
the midwife might be included or whoever assisted such as a family member if the child was born at
home or anywhere other than a hospital that will be listed on the birth certificate as well [Music]
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