Birth records pertain to documents that are created at the time of birth of a person. You can find the date of birth, the place of birth, and the names of the parents as well as the doctor who handled the birth of the child. Birth certificates are usually issued within a span of six months after the birth. The county clerk's office or the health department is usually the government institution that will keep copies of birth documents in a given location. People primarily access birth records as part of one's search for his/ her genealogy. These records are known as eyewitness accounts, the earliest and most accurate record of someone's birth, recognized for having been around since the early 1900s. And for many people, birth documents can help one fill in the missing spaces in one's family tree or determine the rightful heir or ancestor to someone's estate. Aside from adoption records, birth records can also be an excellent resource for finding one's birth parents. They can also help you trace where your original hometown is and determine if there are still any locals who you may be related to or who were acquainted with any of your relatives. Whether you are piecing together your family history or conducting research on someone else's family for a book or an article, retrieving birth documents is the most obvious start off point.... http://groups.google.com/group/familytreesyvs