8.1 Finding birth, marriage, death, divorce, and adoption information in other records.

“We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors’ wisdom”1 – Maya Angelou

Vital or civic records do not exist for every person. This may be because the research subject was born before civil registration began in their area, but there are also other reasons those records were never generated. At times, if there are documents, they do not prove useful to family historians. In his work Ancestral Trails, author Mark Herber lays out some of these general problems and challenges:

For example, you are certain that your grandfather was born in 1890 Oxford, but you cannot locate his birth certificate. Why is this? You may find a document which (an index tells you) refers to your ancestor, but the document is meaningless to you since it is not in modern English. How can you find out what it says? Dates can pose another problem. For example, a child is recorded as baptized in June 1689 but buried in February 1689. How is that possible?2

Herber goes on to point out that spelling, the research subject having multiple monikers, silent letters which defy the programming of search engines, poor handwriting, places changing jurisdictions or names, language difficulties, and calendar adjustments all make identifying and properly interpreting vital information difficult for genealogists. Overcoming these types of obstacles is part of what makes family history fascinating and exciting.

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