Vital Records
| Birth & Death | Marriage & Divorce |
Birth & Death Records
Vital Records are typically maintained by the state health department, but older records may be kept by 
a historical society. In Ohio:
- Ohio Department of Health – Death, 1954-, Birth, 1908-. Order online or find out the location of local offices where you can obtain copies. For example, Cleveland City Hall is one such local office.
- Ohio Historical Society, Death Certificate Index – 1913-1944: Search the index and order certificates by mail
- Ohio Historical Society has some birth records for certain probate courts for 1867-1908, but they are not online. See the Historical Society’s page: About Birth Records in Ohio
National Center for Health Statistics -obtain vital records for the fifty states.
Death Records - More sources:
- Cleveland Necrology File– contains cemetery records and death notices from about 1850- 1975. (via Cleveland Public Library)
- Cleveland News Index – obituaries 1976-present (via Cleveland Public Library)
- Death Notices & Guest Books (recent Plain Dealer full-text obituaries)
- America's Historical Newspapers (Newsbank) – via Ohiolink. Select type=obituary
- America's Newspapers: Newsbank - via Ohiolink
- Social Security Death Index
- Westlaw - SSA Death Records (same as the Social Security Death Index on the web)
- Westlaw - Obituary Pages - U.S. and International papers
- National Obituary Archive
- Obituary Central (directory of obituary sites)
- Online Searchable Death Indexes – links to death records, death certificate indexes, death notices & registers, obituaries, probate indexes, and cemetery & burial records for the fifty states.
Marriage and Divorce Records
- Abstracts can be ordered from Ohio Dept of Health. The Ohio Dept of Health
requests that you provide the name of the bride/groom, years in which to search, and the city where the marriage/divorce took place. You at least have to know the county where the marriage/divorce took place. If you do not know the county, commercial databases come in handy. - Newspaper databases may also come in handy when you do not know the city or county where the marriage/divorce took place. Lexis (ALLNWS or other) and Westlaw (ALLNEWS or other) , America's Newspapers: Newsbank and many more available to CSU students. Also available via the Cleveland Public Library.
- Actual copies of marriage licenses must be obtained from the probate court of the county in which the marriage took place. See, for example, Cuyahoga County Probate Court Marriage License Index 1810-1998 , Search Docket and Index – Marriages 1998- present
- Actual copies of divorce decrees must be obtained from the domestic relations court. If the court has an online docket, it may help confirm that a divorce took place in that county. For example, see Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court Docket
- Lexis has marriage and divorce records for 15 states, including Ohio. Lexis -Public Records>Find Filings>Marriage & Divorce Records
- Westlaw - Public Information, Records & Filings>Litigation & Court Records>Divorce Records by State. For 12 states. Westlaw marriage records not on law school subscription.
Links Checked, SA, 5-7-2009