members. Birth, marriage
and death records are al-
ways considered vital rec-
ords—but records of divorce
are also frequently classed
with them. They may be
kept on the state, county or
municipal levels. The
amount of detail varies and
one must not expect to find
them in quantity before the
last one hundred years for
most locations.
Family historians al-
ways want to discover the
dates and places of birth,
marriage, and death for
each of their ancestors. It is
not that these facts are so
interesting in and of them-
selves. A list of names,
dates and places can seem
pretty dry, actually. They
are only a means to an end,
in that they help us build a
structure upon which to
layer further details about
the lives and personalities
of our forebears.
For instance, if we did
not know when and where
our ancestors lived, we
wouldn’t know what major
historical events affected
them or where to look for
the records that might flesh
out their lives. We’d also
have little hope of being
able to connect them to
their parents and grandpar-
ents.
Public vital records are
among the easiest sources
to obtain and use when
one needs to establish
these crucial facts. They
usually contain detailed
and precise information
taken directly from family
Vital records often contain
very sensitive information,
like an individual’s cause of
death, the circumstances
leading up to a divorce, or
allusions to the illegitimacy
of a child. While individuals
may feel uncomfortable
about the public nature of
these documents, the state
sometimes has even more
compelling reasons for re-
stricting access to them.
Birth certificates, in par-
ticular, can enable criminals
to assume false identities
and obtain credit or other
privileges on false premis-
es. In recent years, there
has been a strong move-
ment by legislatures to limit
just who can see and ob-
tain copies of this material.
Death certificates and even
indexes to vital records are
also sometimes restricted.
Before you begin your
research, make sure that
you know what the privacy
law is for the location in-
volved. You will find that
some records are restricted
for a certain period of time
(often 50 to 100 years) after
they are created. Only the
individual listed on the rec-
ord or his or her immediate
family member may obtain a
copy, after proving their iden-
tity. Official (or certified) cop-
ies may be restricted while
unofficial (or uncertified) cop-
ies might not be.
Also, older records may
have been placed in the cus-
tody of a state level archive,
while the newer ones could
remain in a county office.
V i t a l S i g n s : D o c u m e n t i n g T h r e e
C r u c i a l L i f e E v e n t s
W H A T
Y O U ’ L L
F I N D
W I T H I N :
Overview
Access issues
Birth certifi-
cates in brief
Marriage bonds
Marriage licens-
es
Divorces
Death certifi-
cates
Substitutes for
vital records
L o c a l L a w a n d A c c e s s I s s u e s
C O U R T E S Y O F T H E H I G H P O I N T P U B L I C L I B R A R Y
Vital Records
A Beginner’s Guide from the Heritage Research Center
H E R I T A G E
R E S E A R C H
C E N T E R
High Point Public Library
901 N. Main Street
P. O. Box 2530
High Point, N.C. 27261
(336) 883-3637
HOURS:
MON: 9:00—6:00
TUE-THU: 9:00—8:00
FRI: 9:00—6:00
SAT: 9:00-1:00 2:00-6:00
SUN: CLOSED
Birth certificates have been
required in North Carolina only
since 1913. Some larger cities
may have kept some records a
few years prior to this date. In
this regard, North Carolina is
relatively typical of the United
States as a whole. Because of
this, birth certificates are gen-
erally not much help for 19th
century questions. There are
some jurisdictions that kept
earlier records of birth, mar-
riage and death, but these are
relatively rare and compliance
can be spotty. Examples are
the birth, death and marriage
registers of late 19th century
Virginia and Kentucky and the
township vital statistics books
kept throughout New England
from the 17th century.
The older the birth certifi-
cate, the less information it is
likely to give. But eventually,
certificates may include the
name, race, and age of each
parent and of the child, the
residence of the family, the
occupation and educational
level of the parents, length and
weight of the child at birth,
date and time of birth, whether
born dead or alive, whether
the child was premature or full
term, the name and place of
residence of the person who
gave the information, etc.
There may even be a footprint
or handprint for the child and a
thumb print for the mother.
Older registers of births
contain far less detail but mini-
mally give the date of birth,
name of the child and of the
parents (though perhaps not
the mother’s maiden name)
and the race of the child.
Birth certificates are often
the most protected form of vital
record. And remember that
many people failed to comply
with the law in the early days,
particularly when a child was
born at home without a doctor.
In those cases, look for a
delayed birth certificate.
curity (called a bondsman) to
the governor, swearing that
there was no impediment to the
marriage. If an impediment
later arose (such as bigamy),
the groom would be required to
pay the penal sum to the state.
The number of marriage bonds
varies widely from county to
county. Many have been lost or
destroyed over time and some
were stolen from courthouses
before they could be brought in
to the Archives. Some re-
mained among the papers of
various justices of the peace
and were never filed with the
clerk or registrar.
In other cases (perhaps a
majority), couples never filed a
bond at all, because of the fees
involved. Instead, couples often
elected to declare their inten-
tion to marry in their local
church on three successive
Sundays. This gave anyone
knowing of an impediment time
to object (called “declaring the
banns.”) Such marriages were
equally valid. Others, like the
Quakers, avoided bonds be-
cause of religious beliefs. The
bond itself is no guarantee that
a marriage took place, only that
one was intended. And the
date of the bond is not the date
the marriage. However, the
bride’s maiden name and the
groom’s name are given. The
bondsman is often a relative of
one or the other. It is rare to
find a marriage bond before the
1780s. The last bonds were
executed in the mid 1860’s.
Questions of property
ownership and inheritance
have always been concerns of
the state. Marriage rights play
an important role in these legal
realms. But records of marriage
have not always been carefully
kept. In some places, such as
Pennsylvania or South Caroli-
na, no civil registration of mar-
riage was required before the
20th century. In New England,
on the hand, marriage records
extend back to the earliest
days of settlement. For slaves,
marriage was illegal until free-
dom came. Only then were
couples allowed to register
their prior relationships as mar-
riages in cohabitation docu-
ments.
When it comes to North
Carolina records, the earliest
marriage documents are called
“marriage bonds.” They were
made by the groom and a se-
B i r t h C e r t i f i c a t e s :
A B r i e f O v e r v i e w
P a g e 2
T y i n g t h e K n o t 1 :
T h e M a r r i a g e B o n d
Myth busters:
In the earliest
days, many
marriages ,
perhaps a
majority,
went
unrecorded in
North
Carolina. The
fees involved
dissuaded
many couples
from going to
the
courthouse.
Marriages did
not have to be
recorded to
be legal until
1868.
V i t a l R e c o r d s
These are filed and indexed
separately and were obtained by
an adult (sometimes born even
before birth certificates were
required) in order to prove his/
her citizenship or date of birth for
social security eligibility, pass-
ports, or other legal purposes.
In North Carolina, vital sta-
tistics of all kinds are housed in
the county register of deeds
office and a copy is filed with the
Vital Records Section of the NC
Department of Health and Hu-
man Services. It is usually easier
to obtain copies through the
county. In the case of a birth,
one may find a certificate in
more than one place, if the birth
occurred in one county and the
parents resided in another.
bound volume), which acted as a
kind of index. The most complete
information about the marriage,
however, is to be found on the loose
sheet of paper called the license, not
in the register. Most counties, since
the 1950’s, have allowed the State
Archives to accession or copy their
licenses and marriage registers to
microfilm. But, unfortunately, some
counties have disposed of their older
licenses or lost them, leaving only
the marriage register as a reference.
Licenses are a great resource
for family research because they
include the race, name, residence,
and age of each party to the mar-
riage, the name and signature of the
person applying for the license, the names
of the parents of the bride and groom and
their residence, also whether they were
living or dead. The bottom portion of the
license, completed at the wedding, con-
tains the date and place of the wedding
and the signatures of the minister or JP
and witnesses. The register on the other
hand, includes only a summary.
Licenses and marriage registers are
often indexed by bride and/or groom and
can be viewed in the local courthouse in
the Register of Deeds office or at the
State Archives. Marriages of people of
color were kept separate from white mar-
riages. Some licenses have been ab-
stracted in book form by genealogy socie-
ties and have been acquired by the HRC.
ed and voted on in both hous-
es. Most petitions never made
it out of committee. Even few-
er managed to obtain the con-
sent of one or both houses.
When divorce was granted, it
was often only a sanctioned
separation allowing legal and
financial autonomy for the
wife, not absolute divorce.
The records are preserved
among the legislative papers
in the state of interest. They
most often include the petition
of the injured partner, the an-
swer of the offending party,
and affidavits and petitions by
witnesses for each.
In North Carolina, no di-
vorces are known to have
been granted in the colonial
period. Those considered in
the early stages of independ-
ence are located in the Gen-
eral Assembly session rec-
In days gone by, divorce
was a very difficult and desper-
ate proposition. Not only were
people considering divorce
shamed by their community, but
they found that the laws were
set up to impede their efforts.
A woman was particularly dis-
advantaged —even when she
produced evidence that her
husband had cheated on her,
did not support her, was wast-
ing the family’s wherewithal or
was physically abusing her.
After all, it was in the hands of
other men to decide whether or
not a divorce should be grant-
ed, and few had imagination
enough to sympathize with the
plight of women.
The earliest divorce re-
quests were usually considered
by state legislatures. They had
to be presented as a petition or
bill by the injured party (whether
husband or wife) and deliberat-
ords, separated by session of
the legislature in the files for
private bills or petitions. All of
the surviving legislative pa-
pers relating to divorce have
been abstracted and indexed
in the North Carolina Genea-
logical Society Journal.
From 1814 to 1835, the
legislature gradually passed
responsibility for divorce to
the Superior Courts in each
county. These papers
are classed under each
county’s divorce series
at the State Archives
and are filed together by
case (designated by
surname and date),
usually up through the
early 20th century.
More recent divorce
records may remain in
the Superior Court’s
archive.
T y i n g t h e K n o t 2 : L i c e n s e s
B r e a k i n g U p i s H a r d t o D o
P a g e 3
V i t a l R e c o r d s
“Not only were
people considering
divorce shamed by
their community,
but they found that
the laws were set up
to impede their
efforts.”
Beginning in 1868, North Carolina
moved to a system of issuing li-
censes for all marriages. No legal
marriage could take place without
one. This system continues to the
present day.
The groom or his representative
came to the clerk, paid a license fee,
and obtained a written permission
that any minister or justice of the
peace could use to validate a cere-
mony. The minister filled out the
bottom portion of the license with the
details of the marriage and then
returned it to the clerk who filed it.
The clerk also recorded summary
information from the license in the
county’s marriage register (a
is no civil record of marriage.
(2) Church records: Christenings,
baptisms, confirmations, mar-
riage, death and burial records
were kept by churches long be-
fore the state required it. Howev-
er, Quakers, Anglicans and Cath-
olics are far more likely to track
these than any of the other sects.
(3) Newspapers: These often con-
tain notices of marriage and
death in the 19th century, but only
more prominent people usually
figure in them and the notices are
often very brief.
Before the twentieth century, records
of birth, marriage, and death are
spotty, if they are available at all.
What can you do to find approximate
or exact dates for these key life
events in that era? There are many
resources available. The following
are only a few, select examples:
(1) Probate records: Wills and es-
tate files can give at least ap-
proximate dates of death and
sometimes, in the case of es-
tates, exact dates. Inheritance
records can reveal the maiden
names of wives for whom there
(4) Cemetery records: Readings of
cemeteries provide dates of birth
and death. They are usually only
widely available for people who
died in the mid to late 1800’s
and after.
(5) Census records: They give
easy access to a rough estimate
of the years of birth and mar-
riage for many people. Death
dates can be deduced to a ten
year time window.
(6) Family Bible records: No ex-
planation needed.
S u b s t i t u t e s n e e d e d . . .
The Last Station
Death certificates, like birth certificates, begin in most locations, only in the
early twentieth century. In North Carolina, they start in 1913, but compliance, once
again, was not widespread until after World War II. For those who died at home or
without a doctor present, it was very common that no certificate would ever be filed.
However, when they are located, they can be of enormous benefit to the researcher.
Death certificates provide information about the deceased person’s date of
birth or age at death, marital status, date of death, cause of death, attending physi-
cian, if any, length of illness, place of birth, names of parents (including the maiden
name of the mother) and their places of birth, place of burial, and informant’s name
(the name of the person who provided the information.) Although they don’t begin
until the early 20th century, they can still be informative about persons who were
born as early as the 1830’s or 1840’s. They can tell us about where a person is bur-
ied even if that person’s grave marker never existed or has since disappeared. They can give us the maiden name of his moth-
er, even if his parents did not have a surviving marriage record. They can also inform us about family medical history or alert us
to crimes or catastrophes. It is important, however, to realize that they may be inaccurate if the person giving the information
was poorly informed or was in a deep state of grief or shock. Many of the bits of information they contain may be garbled by
faulty memory or incomplete knowledge. So it is best to cross-check them against other records.
In North Carolina, the Register of Deeds in each county maintains the death certificates. Copies were filed with the
Department of Health and Human Services in Raleigh, but it usually easier to work through the county. Ancestry.com currently
provides searchable access to images of original North Carolina death certificates through 1975 and an index only through
2004. Ancestry and FamilySearch.org, among other on-line sources, provide access to indexes of deaths or images of death
records for many localities including Chicago, Philadelphia, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, Geor-
gia, Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio and many others.
V i t a l R e c o r d s
P a g e 4
