Genealogy Tips from the Experts

Posted on October 31, 2010 by bob in DiscoverYou

Q: How do I get a birth or death certificate for my ancestor who was from Alabama?

A: The state of Alabama did not require birth or death certificates until 1908, and in the early years of the law, not all births or deaths were recorded.

By law, birth certificates are restricted for 125 years, but are available to the individual or next of kin.  Prior to 1908, in the late 1880s-90s, a few counties in Alabama recorded births and deaths in registers.
Birth registers rarely included the child’s name, and death registers did not include parents’ names.  The Alabama Department of Archives and History has some birth and death registers on microfilm in the Research Room. For the genealogical information available on death certificates from 1908-1974, visit the Genealogical Society of Utah’s web site – www.FamilySearch.org – Records Search Pilot.  Those records do not have cause of death or place of burial.  That information may be on the record at the Alabama Department of Public Health.  To obtain a certified copy of a death certificate or birth certificate, contact ADPH at www.adph.org .

Q: How do I research my Native American ancestors?
A: Unfortunately, there are very few original records at the state level in Alabama that can aid in researching Native American ancestry.

If Native Americans living in Alabama survived the removal and remained in Alabama, they generally intermarried with white or black families and are listed on federal census records as white, black, or mulatto.

The greatest concentration of those who did list themselves as Indian on census records was in southwest Alabama.

There is a 1900 Indian Population census at the end of the Monroe County census with only a few families enumerated, and some men identified themselves as Indian on their World War I draft registration records in 1917 and 1918.

According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Guide to Tracing Your American Indian Ancestry, there is no national Indian registry.

It also states that tribal membership requires “lineal descendency” from someone named on a tribal roll, and the guide gives some tips for researching Indian genealogy and registering with a federally recognized tribe or band. More information is available at www.bia.gov.

TIP: You can now order digital copies of records from the National Archives at archives.gov/order.

Nancy Dupree is Senior Archivist at the Alabama Department of Archives and History.  If you have a question for Nancy, email us at primeeditor@gmail.com.

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