The majority of countries across the world keep birth, marriage and death records in some form.
Birth, marriage and death are one of the greatest resources for helping you build your family history as:
- They provide a wealth of information for linking family relationships. Since civil registration began, birth, marriage and death records have been retained for a significant proportion of the population.
- They are reasonably trustworthy. Birth, marriage and death records are a fairly trustworthy type of family history information source as they are generally reported close to the time of the event by someone with firsthand knowledge of the facts.
- They are accessible. Being official documents, State governments have made an effort to maintain birth, marriage and death records. You can search online for historical records through a majority of the State’s Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry Offices.
In the nineteenth century, most British and European countries began keeping national birth, death, and marriage records. Prior to that time, these events were documented in parish church registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials.
Keep in mind that not all births, marriages, and deaths were recorded in the early days of civil registration. People in remote regions frequently found it inconvenient to take a day off work to travel many miles (as it was in those days) to the local registrar. Some people were skeptical of the government’s motivations for requesting such information and refused to register. Others may have registered the birth of one child but not the birth of another.