Maine Vital Records and the Maine CDC Genealogy Research Card

Maine has recently made some changes to the availability of their vital records. Vital records are records related to the birth, marriage and death (BMD) of a person. Maine has recently restricted all BMD vital records less than 100 years old.

You must be the person on the record, parents of the person or a direct descendant to receive a certified copy of a BMD record. Luckily, Genealogy Researchers who posses a Maine Genealogy Research Card, issued by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control can receive un-certified copies of all BMD records.

The records can be procured through different locations based on the time frame.

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services Office of Vital Records; located in Augusta has all BMD records from 1923 to present. They also have Divorce records from 1892 to present.

The Maine State Archives, also located in Augusta have all BMD records from 1892-1922.

Records for all dates may also be located at the local level as another option for procuring the records.

I posses a Maine CDC Genealogy Research Card and I would be happy to locate those BMD & D records for you in Maine.

For more information see my section on ordering Maine records.

Family History Library Look Ups; Using All Available Records!

One of the best ways to locate genealogy records is through the use microfilms from familysearch.org

Many genealogy records have been microfilmed and they are available for ordering from the Family Search website. These can be valuable because it allows you to research and locate a record that you might otherwise not be able to access.

For example I was researching a family in Michigan and I was trying to verify a birth year of the Great Grandmother in the family. "Betty" is listed in the 1930 and 1940 US Census as being 9 and 20 respectively. So we know she was born about 1921.

Preliminary research results in the SSDI determines their are two Betty's born in that county in Michigan. One Betty was born in 1920 and the other in 1921.

Here is the link to the Family Search Catalog - It will open in a new window.

I went to Family Search, clicked on "Catalog" and entered the search term of Michigan, Alcona  (Alcona is the county) and then searched. I scrolled to the vital records and found that the birth records from 1869 - 1953 have been filmed from the county courthouse located in Harrisonville, Michigan.

If you will recall the Betty I am looking for was born in 1920 or 1921. Film 963959 would contain those years.

At that point I would order the correct film online from the website and then wait for it to be delivered to my local Family History Center. I would then go there when they are open and view the record and photograph it or whatever for recovering the correct image.

I have about a week to ten days to wait for delivery of the film. I have to pay $7.50 for a short term loan or $18.50 for a long term loan. I then have to take the time and gasoline to get to my local FHC which is 20 miles each way from my home. In this part of MA if I locate the record as soon as I view the film, then I am looking at about 2 hours of my time and maybe more if the weather or traffic isn't cooperating.

Plan B?

I have affiliated researchers in SLC at the FHL that will assist in doing lookups right from the film in the library.

Records Access in Massachusetts - State Registry Versus the Local Records

With regards to this post, we continue to work with Birth Marriage and Death (BMD) records in Massachusetts from 1921 to present.

All Birth Marriage and Death Records are not just available at the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records (MA RVR), they are also available at the local city or town clerks office.

I have not visited every city or town clerks office in the state so I am speaking in general terms. Very few charge you to access and view their records and will let you transcribe them for free. Some will let you photograph them. All will charge you for a certified copy and their rates seem to vary. I have never had any bad experiences with viewing or receiving records from the local cities or towns.

The only issue I have had is not finding a record for someone in the town I thought they were in and is the main reason I prefer to use the MA Registry of Vital Records. If someone lives in one town and is taken to the hospital in the other town, the death record will be in the other town. This can be a huge problem when working with the city and town clerks office as their indexes only cover their city or town. The MA RVR has them all.

I am fortunate that that the MA RVR is not that far for me and I am able to visit weekly.

Next week, records prior to 1921!

Records Access in Massachusetts - MA Registry of Vital Records - Restricted Records

Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but in Massachusetts, very few records are restricted. According to the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records Website (on 6 June 2012) the following information is supplied regarding records access and restrictions:

"Access Policy for Massachusetts Vital Records

Access to restricted birth and marriage records is limited by §2A, Chapter 46, M.G.L. For those persons with access to restricted records, proof of identity (a photo ID) is necessary, and in some cases additional documentation is also necessary. Access to persons other than listed below require a court order.

Out-of-Wedlock Births

Access to non-marital (out-of-wedlock) births is limited by §2A, Chapter 46, M.G.L. to the following:

Subject of the record (child)
Parents listed on the record
Father not listed on the record with documentary proof that he is the father (such as a paternity adjudication, stipulation or properly completed Voluntary Acknowledgment of Parentage)
Legal guardian of the child
Legal representative of the child
Marriages of Person Born Out-of-Wedlock

Access to marriage certificates when the bride or groom was born out-of-wedlock is limited by §2A, Chapter 46, M.G.L. to the following:

Bride or groom
Legal representative of the bride or groom
Parent or guardian of the bride or groom
This information is provided by the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics within the Department of Public Health."

(From: http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/consumer/basic-needs/vitals/access-policy-for-massachusetts-vital-records.html )

Please note that there does not appear to be any restrictions of death records, and from my own experience I have never been denied a death record. (Death certificates may contain restricted information on the back of them, and I encountered this on one occasion.)

My series on Massachusetts BMD records continues next week.

Records Access in Massachusetts - The Registry of Vital Records

Recently I have seen discussions on various boards and blogs about access to records in various states. For the purposes of this post, I am strictly referring to BMD (Birth, Marriage & Death) records in the state of Massachusetts.

The state of Massachusetts has some of the most extensive BMD records in the US, however they are not free!

All BMD records from 1921 to present* are located at the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records (MA RVR) in the Dorchester section of Boston, MA. All records are available for public viewing in the research room, however they charge $9 per hour to use their research room and the hours are limited to just a few hours  per day. There are no research hours on Wednesdays or weekends. All of the indexes are open for inspection and the staff will pull your records for viewing and transcribing the records.

If you want a copy of a record at the MA RVR, you have to pay the $18 fee for a certified copy. Photography and scanners are not permitted at the MA RVR.

*An exception to the 1921 to present is that cities and towns have a period of time before they are required to send the records to the state. So records that are within 3 months of their occurrence may only be found at the local town clerk's office.

In my next posts I will cover records that are restricted, records from the cities and towns and the MA Archives.

Back On the Hunt for Mary Louise Smith

For the last several weeks I have been talking about my Great-Grandmother, Mary Louise Smith Cormican. To recap, she married my grandfather in 1874 in Hamilton County, Ohio and I was unable to locate a record of their marriage other than an index entry on the Hamilton County Genealogical Society website.

A check of the US Census for 1860 and 1870 turned up several hundred Mary Smith's in Indiana. Since I looked at the US Census in 1900 and located Mary and Hugh in Harrison Township, Hamilton County, Ohio and it shows Mary has a date of birth of September 1853 and that she and her mother were born in Indiana and her father was born in Ohio. This still doesn't narrow the search down far enough as I still don't have the names of her parents, but I have now some hint that she was born in Indiana in September in about 1853.

Of course, the US census is only as good as the person reporting the information and the person writing it down. It is far from an exact science and the US Census should not be relied upon as your sole source of information.

Around 1920 Hugh and Mary moved to Miller Township in Dearborn County, Indiana and they were there during the 1920 US Census.

Here again, numerous family trees on Ancestry.com have Mary Louise listed as deceased in 1924, with no sources to support this information.

Strike Three?

Well, it was a foul tip, anyway. next week we can talk about where I went from here. See ya next Wednesday!

On the Hunt for Mary Louise Smith

Last week I talked about my Great Grandmother Mary Louise Smith. Mary Louise Smith married Hugh Daugherty Cormican in Hamilton County, Ohio.

According to the Hamilton County genealogical Society website: "On 24, March 1884 a great tragedy struck Cincinnati. A riot started that evening in the downtown area and resulted in the burning of the Hamilton County Courthouse. This fire destroyed many of the records that had been kept previously in the courthouse, one of which was marriage license applications and returns. Apparently many of the 'older' records (before 1860) were stored in another part of the courthouse and did not sustain as extensive damage as those from the period 1860 until March 1884."


The Hamilton County Genealogical Society has done a wonderful job compiling a database of alternate marriage records to compensate for those lost in the fire. They have an online index on their website. 


I located a record entry with Mary L Smith and Hugh Corrigan (spelling) for that date with a code of CT4, which means it was in the Cincinnati Times Newspaper in 1873 or 1874. I contacted the Hamilton County Genealogical Society by mail and they were unable to locate their marriage record. When I contacted the Hamilton County Public Library in Cincinnati, they were unable to locate their wedding announcement in the newspaper.

Some of my relatives have their marriage date as 11 January 1874 and the very helpful staff at the library searched around that date to no avail. I am not sure where my fellow researchers acquired that date, There are seventeen family trees on Ancestry.com that have that date, but none of them have any source for the wedding date.

Strike Two! Next week I will write about my next steps.