The best and earliest birth, marriages and death records have to be the first States. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont I think had the best info as far back as when the pilgrims came to the New World. I was able to trace my BUTTERFIELDS from Yorkshire to the New World, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Michigan with very little problem. But not all of the States (New York) kept early records. I just thank my lucky starts and good luck on ferreting out the facts for my family members. Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: "SLC" <navy33@express-news.net> To: <NEWGEN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2000 4:15 PM Subject: [NEWGEN] Re US REGISTRATIONS > Roy > > Re...US birth registration ... > > It differs from state to state..some states have birth records back > father than other ones...some states did not have to have birth > records till the late 1800's...for all of my gggrandparents children I > found 1 record of birth in Fall River, Mass for 1869 that required > births to be registered....1 child in Ohio early 1870's that his birth > is recorded and as for the other 5 children their info was found in a > search done by the Diocese of Pittsburg Pennsylvania for the rest of > the 1870's as birth registration was not required for the area in > Pennsylvania that they lived...neither were death certificates > required for that time frame...without the search papers done for me > by the Diocese of Pittsburgh I would have no records on them.... > > Where in the UK I have birth registrations, death registrations and > marriage registrations clear back to the start of Civil > Registration...makes me mad that our US registrations for those years > were not as good as the UK was...we simply did not keep good records > here in those days...thats why we have to have searches done by > various church organizations, wills to be found and searched, > graveyards to be haunted to find family members, land papers of those > that owned land, I could go on and on on the places we here have to > search for info cause of the lack of those much needed registrations > back then.... > > SLC > > > ==== NEWGEN Mailing List ==== > DON'T FORGET TO USE THE WORDS "THANK YOU" WHEN SOMEONE HAS DONE > YOU A FAVOR....ALSO WHEN SOMEONE HAS TRIED TO BE HELPFUL. > >