vital records
Birth, death certificates
Vital records are official documents recording major life events—birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, and divorce decrees.
Governments maintain these records for legal and statistical purposes.
You need vital records to prove identity, establish citizenship, or settle estates: I had to request my birth certificate from the vital records office.
- death certificateOfficial record of passing
- birth certificateOfficial record of arrival
- marriage licenseLegal authorization to wed
- apostilleInternational document validation
- divorce decreeCourt document ending marriage
name change · registrar · county clerk · government office · public registry · public record · archive · census data · parish register · documentation · paper trail · record · notarization · sworn statement · naturalization certificate · certified copy · courthouse · ancestry
- demographicspopulation density, population growth, age distribution, population, gender ratio
- public healthdisease prevention, immunization, disease control, health education, epidemiology
- life recordsautobiography, biography, birth certificate, death certificate, genealogy
- official documentsbirth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate, passport, driver's license
- recordsworld record, record, Guinness, documents, album
- demographybirth rate, death rate, demographics, fertility rate, population growth
vital recordsoral history
Recorded interviews about the past
personal journals · private correspondence · hearsay · diary entries