7.2 Finding Civic Records
It is vital to search for records that document major life events in order to discover as much as possible about the life of the research subject. There are, however, challenges to doing so. Author Helen Osborn reminds researchers:
Genealogy is not easy. In fact, it is deceptively complex, and can be very challenging, but the complexity is hidden from the beginner by a veneer of button-pushing speed brought to us by the internet. It is really important to remember that any one search does not result in an ancestor; it finds a record. Only the careful piecing together of records and analysis of results in the round brings us information about our ancestors.1
One challenge to identifying these vital, civic records is that in many countries civil records of birth, marriages, deaths, etc., may not have been routinely kept until the twentieth century. In the United States, “the practice of recording civil vital statistics developed slowly.… Early vital information was sometimes recorded in brief entries in register books until the twentieth century, when it became more common to create certificates.”2 The FamilySearch Wiki can help a family historian determine the scope of records for the place of interest by giving an overview of vital records in that area. If the people being researched lived before civil records were kept or if the civil registers do not cover the targeted time period, genealogists turn to the vital record substitutes that will be presented in Chapter 8.
The term “vital record” is primarily tied to research in the United States, but in other countries the same records may be listed as “civil registration” or “civic records.” For research outside the United States, the same process is utilized but the best collections of BMD records could be listed under one of those terms instead.
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