DESCRIPTION:

This database is an index to over 5.9 million births recorded in Kentucky between 1911 and 1999. Information contained in this index includes the following:

• Child's name
  
• Child's gender
  
• Birth date
  
• Birth county
  
• Mother's name
  
• Registered date
  
• Volume year
  
• Volume number
  
• Birth certificate number

With the information provided in this index, you may be able to obtain a copy of a birth certificate. If possible, it is important that you do this because oft times more information is provided in an original record than is provided in its index. For information on how to order a copy of a birth certificate, visit the Kentucky Department of Health, Vital Records website.

Extended Description:

Birth and death registration was enacted statewide on 1 January 1911 and generally adhered to by 1920. Indexes to births and deaths after 1911 are microfilmed; however, the actual records are not. Certificates of births and deaths after 1911 are only available at the Office of Vital Statistics, Department of Health Services, 275 E. Maine St., Frankfort, KY 40601. The microfilmed index can be used at the Kentucky Historical Society, the University of Kentucky Library, the Filson Library, and the FHL. Delayed registrations of birth are maintained by the Office of Vital Statistics.

Taken from Wendy Bebout Elliott, "Kentucky," in Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources, 3d ed., ed. Alice Eichholz. (Provo, Utah: Ancestry, 2004).

Vital records can be great sources of genealogical information. Besides providing the name of the person for whom the record was created, vital records can provide a wealth of other information. Birth records will generally, but not always, contain the following information: Child - name, birthplace, date of birth, sex, hospital, time of birth; Father - name, race, birthplace, age, occupation; Mother - name, race, birthplace, age, occupation, residence, term of residence in the community, term of pregnancy, marital status, number of other living children, number of other deceased children, number of children born dead.

Modern (post-1910) birth records are maintained by the states. They are extremely valuable, but many researchers, learning birth information from home sources, fail to obtain birth certificates. This reluctance is most unfortunate and can result in an inaccurate or incomplete family genealogy. Modern birth records contain much more information than earlier records. Although birth certificates vary from state to state, most of them share much information in common.