Birth records are all information that happens during a person birth. When viewing these records you can find the full name, place of birth, date and time, sex, and names of parents. These records are created by the Vital Records offices and kept on file by state and county agencies where the birth took place. Official birth records will be stamped with a seal of the record keeper.
Finding birth records can help many people in many ways. Some of the more popular reasons are: Finding birth parents or other relatives, knowing where you were born, and confirming when and where the birth took place are some common reasons someone would want to run a birth records search. Once a birth record is found someone can dig deeper into public records by then searching other names and places on the record results. This is why millions of records related to birth are searched each year.
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Are vital records par of public information?
This depends on where the actual record was created. States can differ in the rules of what is public and what is not. Birth records are part of Vital records which will comprise of birth, death, marriage, and divorce records. Depending on the age of the birth record also makes a difference. When a birth record is very old they can be searched and accessed by almost anyone without any restrictions.
Birth record types
It is recommended by the U.S. National Center for health Statistics to use there forms to document births. With that said each state is free to create their own forms and because of this the appearance or the information within a birth certificate form are uniform across states.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services and the office of
Short forms
When applying for a United States passport, not all birth certificates can be used. When talking about a certified birth certificate it will have an embossed, impressed raised, or multicolored seal with the registrar’s name and date from the registrar’s office. this certificate must be within 1 year of birth. Not all versions of a short birth certificate will be accepted when applying for a passport.
Souvenir birth certificate
These are the birth certificates that are used by most United States hospitals. They often include the footprints of the newborn. With this said these types of birth certificates are not legally used as proof of age or citizenship and will be rejected most of the time by the Bureau of Consular Affairs for passport applications.
Adoption and vital records
When someone is adopted within the U.S. the government will seal the original birth certificate and issue a replacement that will substitute the persons birth name with the adoptive parents selected name. It will also replace the birth parents name with the adoptive parent’s names. The adopted person is not granted access to their original birth certificates in many instances. with that said it is up to the state and in some instances there are unrestricted laws to access your original birth documents if you were adopted.
Birth Statistics in the United States
The following statistics are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Read more about there statistics here.
3,855,500
Number of Births
11.8 per 1,000 population
Birth rate
60.3 births per 1,000
The fertility rate for woman aged 15-44
8.3%
Percentage of low birthweight in the United States
9.9%
Percentage of preterm babies born in the United States
39.8%
Unmarried percentage of births in the U.S.
26.8 years of age
26.8 is the mean age the first birth for a woman
Morning to Mid-day
The morning and Mid-days are the most frequent times a baby is born
Birth records Restrictions
It is very hard to obtain these types of records of someone that is still living and who you are not the direct family member of. The county clerks restrict access to birth information and most vital records of anyone who was born within 100 years. You will need to have written and notarized permission to receive these records if you are not a close family member. In terms of a close family member, we are referring to a parent, spouse, or child. Finding more historical birth certificates from someone that is over 100 years old typically has their records made public and can be retrieved through the states archive system.
