Vital record

Austrian marriage license (duplicate) from 1854.

Vital records are records of life events kept under governmental authority, including birth certificates, marriage licenses, and death certificates. In some jurisdictions, vital records may also include records of civil unions or domestic partnerships.

In the United States, vital records are typically maintained at the state level. In the United Kingdom, vital records are recorded in the civil registry.

Various European countries are members of an International Commission on Civil Status which provides a mutually recognized convention on the coding of entries appearing in civil status documents, with common codes and translation tables between the language of the member states. They also provide an English unofficial translation.

In the fields of Records Management and Archival Science the term vital record is used to mean "records, regardless of medium, which are essential to the organization in order to continue with its business-crucial functions both during and after a disaster. They need not be permanent, might be active or inactive, originals or copies."

Note that only the life events meaning is restricted to government; the records management meaning in this article applies to both government and non-government organizations.

See also

• Family register
• Vital statistics (government records)

External links

• Where to Write for Vital Records in the US - National Center for Health Statistics
• New Horizons Genealogy specializes in New England and New York Colonial American Vital records, Barbour Collection, State Census records, Census Mortality Schedules, Cemetery records.
• Vital Records and Records Disaster Mitigation and Recovery: An Instructional Guide published by the National Archives and Records Administration of the USA.