11 Types of Records That May Reveal Ancestor's Birth Information

Stuck trying to find birth information about your ancestors?

Take a look at these 11 kinds of records to help you find your ancestor's birth information.

Stuck trying to find birth information about your ancestors? Sometimes birth records can be harder to find than other types of records. Many times, we are looking for our ancestor's birth before registration of births began at the governmental level, but that doesn't mean you can't find clues to your ancestor's birth.

Here are 11 types of records that may include information or clues to find other records about your ancestor's birth:

1. Death records
2. Newspapers
3. Civil registrations
4. Church records (baptism, marriage, burial)
5. Family Bibles
6. Military records (pension applications, draft cards, etc.)
7. Journals, diaries, and letters
8. Census records
9. County histories
10. Court records
11. Cemetery records

Sure, some records will be better than others. Meaning that birth information listed on a cemetery record or a death record might not be as credible as baptismal records because generally you'd rather have information from a record created as close as possible to when the birth event occurred. The chances of details of the event being closer to the truth are higher on a record created near the time the event actually occurred. Usually.

However, sometimes those older records are not available. So, a good practice is to make a reasonably exhaustive search of all the available records. 

What types of records have you been able to use for birth information or clues for birth information about your ancestor?

~Caroline

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