Vital Records... are they public?

Factual Questions
1

I am curious…

I thought birth, death, marriage and divorce records were public, and available for viewing by anyone seeking this information.

However, in my attempt to view some of my own vital records, I discovered that I could not simply go to the proper government website and find my information easily.

No matter where I started, I always ended up at a paid website, which would take my information, do a search, and come back telling me it had found what I was looking for, and all I needed to do to see it was pay a fee (usually, it required a credit card number, and there was no way before paying to verify that the record supposedly found was the one I was searching for in the first place.)

My questions:

  1. Are vital records really public? (I am thinking of things like birth, death, marriage, divorce and any other similar type of information).

  2. If they are public, why are they not available for free to people who would want to search through them? I am not looking for an official, certifiled copy of anything… I am just interested in seeing if the information exists and is correct.

  3. If on-line searches are not possible, can one go to a public records office and search the records in person?

  4. are states selling access to their public records to generate revenue, and if so, has there always been a fee to access this information? I noticed that a number of things can be done on ancestry.com. Of course, you have to pay a fee to join. Have the states made their public records available to websites like ancestry.com for a fee, and do these sites then sell access to these records at a higher cost?

  5. Can one get access to vital records without paying a fee (in any way… On-line, in person, via regular mail, over the phone)?

I always thought if someone wanted to see if someone was married or divorced (for example), they could check on this relatively easily by looking at the marriage/divorce certificate filings and this information was free and open to the public.

2

I’m not sure if they’re free or if you need an ID, but you can go to the municipal building (usually the courthouse) in the appropriate county where the act happened and was filed (birth, death, marriage etc) and ask for a copy of the certificate.

3

*1) Are vital records really public? (I am thinking of things like birth, death, marriage, divorce and any other similar type of information).
*
As with everything, it depends. Some states have a time restriction, i.e., the person has to have been dead for xxx years. Some states will not send you a copy of vital records unless you are a direct descendant, others will if you pay a fee (it’s a revenue source for them). New York is one of the worst about sharing records. Oregon and Washington are two of the best.

2) If they are public, why are they not available for free to people who would want to search through them? I am not looking for an official, certifiled copy of anything… I am just interested in seeing if the information exists and is correct.

Sometimes it is available at your local genealogy society, which will probably charge you a fee to join and use their archives. Some county clerks will allow you to search records if you show up in person, others will charge a fee. Most will charge a fee to look it up for you.

*3) If on-line searches are not possible, can one go to a public records office and search the records in person?
*
Usually, but you may have to provide proof of your relationship to that person. Online information is often found at genealogy websites like Ancestry.

4) are states selling access to their public records to generate revenue, and if so, has there always been a fee to access this information? I noticed that a number of things can be done on ancestry.com. Of course, you have to pay a fee to join. Have the states made their public records available to websites like ancestry.com for a fee, and do these sites then sell access to these records at a higher cost?

Yes as to revenue and to pay for paper copies and mailing. Some states have records online. Washington has everything digitized and it’s free. I’ve not heard of states making records available to third part websites; I would think the liability would be too great.

5) Can one get access to vital records without paying a fee (in any way… On-line, in person, via regular mail, over the phone)?

Seldom, in my experience. You can post queries on websites like USGenweb, and hope that somebody will help you out by sending you a copy of a document that they have already paid for.

It would help if you said what it is you are specifically looking for and for what state. There are a number of genealogists on this board who might be able to help you out. I have access to Ancestry, for instance, although vital record documents are not always available.

If you do a search online for something like “Montana vital records”, you’ll get a hit for a site that will tell you what is available and what the state will allow, along with fees, etc.

4

Looks like in Milwaukee you can get a free copy of your (a?) birth certificate (by mail) for the purpose of getting an ID, but you can only do it one time. After that it’s $20. Also, they charge $20 if you need another copy, if it’s not for one of those purposes or if you show up in person to request one.

It also states that if you show up in person you’ll need an ID, but I’m not sure how that works since many people requesting a birth certificate are doing it so they can get an ID (I see now that just showing a few things with the appropriate name on them (easily stolen too) will suffice. ISTM, they should grab a finger print if they don’t get a photo ID).

Anyways, I don’t know that Vital records are public information. At least not all of them. If they were, they’d fall on the FOI act and probably be available on the county’s website.

5

I have done genealogy for a long time, and it’s always cost me money to get copies of vital records. If I remember correctly, in Cook County, Illinois, if you go to their online site, you can get death records as long as they are over twenty years old, birth records that are over seventy-five years old, and marriage licenses that are over fifty years old without a problem. I just went to a county building last year to get something and I had to show an ID and fill out a paper about my relationship to the deceased to get a death certificate from 1973.

I could also paper a small room with the form letters telling me that although they should have the certificate I asked for, they don’t. I got those in pre-Internet days when I would send in my request and a check for $10 or whatever it was back then and hope I would get a certificate back. They kept the money as a fee for searching, but couldn’t find the certificate I wanted.

So I would say they are sort of public, but not free, and you can’t just show up at the county seat and be allowed to poke through their records on your own.

6

It all depends on what the local government chooses to put online, and whether they do it themselves and retain control, or if a private company offers to do the work in exchange for a fee. I was able to get proof that I paid off my mortgage for free online, for example.

Ancestry.com is currently using volunteers to index millions of birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, and much more. It’s a big task and they will charge for access once it’s all done.

Paper records always had a fee. Yes, they available to the public, but there was a fee to pay for the expenses of maintaining the records. It’s been that way for a very long time, even before copiers when you had to get a certified copy actually written out.

7

This depends on jurisdiction. In my state, birth and death records held by the state are closed for privacy reasons; you can have copies only if you prove a direct interest (your own birth certificate, the death certificate of a close relative or in which you have financial interests, etc.). Meanwhile, marriage and divorce records are mostly held in the counties, and are generally open (within reason–you can find out the date a divorce was granted, e.g., but probably not the property settlement details).

In other states, these are wide open, and anybody can get anybody else’s records (celebrity death certificates from California are widely published, e.g.).

Birth certificates, in particular, are becoming harder to get because of identity theft concerns. (If I can buy a copy of your birth certificate, I can present that certificate as my own, and use it to obtain a drivers license or other documents with my picture and your name.)

Record-keeping isn’t free, and the agencies that house the records generally don’t have “provide free public access” as a central mission, so they don’t have the budget to do so either. Projects to make them available cost real money, and that money has to come from somewhere. The fees are usually priced to recover costs.

Almost no public records office is going to allow just anybody to paw through records, because that’s how records get lost/stolen/destroyed/altered/damaged. Depending on state, they may have processes to allow you examine records in small batches, or it may be possible to search indexes and then request a specific records, or everything may be closed.

The places where official records are available on Ancestry.com are places where anybody can buy the records. For example, anybody can buy the Death Master File from the Social Security Administration; a one-time download will run several thousand dollars, so most researchers are better off using a service that has purchased a single copy and is making it available on a subscription basis, but if you really want your own you can buy it.

Similarly, if you really want your own copy of some of the early Kansas county marriage records, the Kansas Historical Society has microfilmed select counties and will sell you a copy of the microfilm. Ancestry.com bought and digitized the film for the benefit of their subscribers, but you can buy your own.

It depends very much on what records and where. For example, the Kansas 4th Judicial District has a free index to old marriage and probate records on their website (Franklin County, e.g.) but the 3rd Judicial District does not, and an actual copy of the record will cost you. Local genealogical societies may have copies of the records available for your inspection, and some free online services (such as the Mormon Church’s FamilySearch) have records from many corners of the globe.

Again, it all depends on when and where.

8

“Public” =/= “free”. Buses and trains are public transport, available to the public, but you still have to pay a fare. Obviously the exact rules and practices will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but a lot of governments charge fees for various public services on a cost recovery basis.

And vital records are not always public. Since they include sometimes sensitive personal information, the rules may keep them private or semi-private for a period, e.g. by requiring you to establish a legitimate interest or a connection with the people to whom the certificate relates.

9

Thank you all for the replies.

I personally don’t have a problem with paying a fee for an official copy of something. That seems reasonable.

Also, if someone is doing the physical searching for me, I have no problem with that being fee-based.

But I think my impressiion that all of this data was public, and therefore free to access, was off-base.

One thing that was mentioned above… Ancestey.com is currently using volunteers to input data from states to build up their databases and help improve their product…

But what about all of the other services, like intellus, etc? There are a number of companies that seem to sell access to these records. ISTM that each one of these companies would not be creating a massive db like ancestry.com is, but rather they would be connecting to some DB that a state has already created for a service fee. Is that basically how this works? For example, if NY state converted all of its public records data to be on a computer, they would sell access to a company that wanted to access it… Is this the business model for these types of sites?

Someone mentioned there may be liability issues that may keep states from doing this, and maybe that is true. I guess it would all depend, again, on location, and the laws of that juristiction.

Ancestry.com may be importing countless old records that are over a certain threshold, like 75 years, I am guessing. But I would think that anything under a certain time period would be maintained and controlled by the individual states or counties… Probably counties for marriage, death, birth and divorce. Is this accurate? Or is ancestry getting access to all data regardless of how old or current it may be? (this is probably another “it depends” answer, depending on location.)

Thanks again, everyone for the answers.

10

No, each of these companies really is creating its own massive database, by purchasing individual datasets from states, counties, private companies, etc., and combining them together. New York could sell access to individual companies (there are systems that work on that model), but it’s more likely that Intelius would buy a copy of the New York data on a recurring basis and load it into their own system.

It very much depends on location: Ancestry’s access depends on the laws of that
jurisdiction. For example, here in Kansas birth and death records created by the state after 1911 are closed; you can’t see them without proving direct interest, and Ancestry can’t either. In some other states, anybody can view anybody else’s record, so Ancestry has been able to buy everybody’s record. (In most states, births and deaths are recorded by the state, and state law controls access. The location of marriage and divorce records is more variable; in many states, they are maintained by the county. See Where to write for vital records for information about each state.)
Thanks again, everyone for the answers.
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11

I recently needed to obtain the death certificate of my sister who died last year. I was listed as a beneficiary on a bank account.

I was surprised to learn that HIPAA (Health Information Portability and Accountability Act) laws protect the information listed on the long form of the death certificate. The long form lists the cause of death, which is protected information and there is a short form for the kinds of things like this beneficiary thing that does not have the protected information. That’s right, the health information for even dead people is protected under HIPAA.

Even though I was getting only the short form the web site tried to made sure that I was who I said I was. I went to the State of Oregon site and was directed to some vitalcheck site, don’t remember the actual name. Since they send the certificates by UPS Next Day the total cost was about $56. After identifying myself as a member of the immediate family, brother, and with current address, SSN and I think my driver’s license number I was asked a series of questions. They were multiple choice and showed 4 street address and asked me which one I had lived at.

Now I have lived at my current address for more than 25 years and this was also my childhood home. I lived in several apartments during my younger years but I couldn’t tell you what the addresses were, but they had them. Three sets of four possible addressed to chose from. I recognized one in the first set, another in the second and third set and then none in the fourth set so I answered “none”, and I was approved.

Where they came up with my pre-internet street addresses I have no idea but they had them. If I had been asked to enter the addresses instead of chose them I would not be able to since I doubt that I have any article of paper in the house the has that information.

12

Big Data knows all.

Seriously, there is a lot of information floating around that the big data brokerages and database services scoop up. In many states, e.g., voter registration data is for sale–that’s how campaigns address ads specifically to you, but places such as Intelius and Acxiom also merge it into their databases (and computerized voter rolls, with name/address/birthdate, have been around longer than the internet). Then data sources such as the Comprehensive Loss Underwriters Exchange ante up your record of property insurance claims (with address and date of loss). Experian RentBureau and TenantData, among others, share your history of paying rent on time (which of course includes dates and where you were living). Etc., etc., etc.

13

I know that Oregon DMV used to sell the change of address information to interested parties/companies. Since we are required to update the address on the license within 30 days of moving, that is probably where it came from. I do not know if this is still allowed but it probably is.

14

I’ve searched on Ancestry and can’t find anything referring to this. Can you provide a link?