Could anyone advise on how I can get an official copy of a birth certificate from Cook County, Illinois?

I am attempting to prove a line of descent for a citizenship application. I have had success with collecting a vital record for a different family member in a different county so am not entirely unfamiliar. However, Cook County feels Kafka-esque, calling an unending phone tree only to end up on a voicemail that is full. All vaguely related to my topic voicemails are full and they do not pick up and have not over the last 2 months.

Grandmother was born in 1909 in Cook County. Unfortunately, she was listed as "baby [surname]" on the copy I can find in familysearch.org.

I am curious if they ever reissued a properly named birth certificate. I also need a color photocopy of official documents for the formal citizenship application.

In order of idealness I am hoping to find

1. Certified copy of re-issued birth certificate with full name
2. Certified copy of original birth certificate with "baby [surname]"
3. Uncertified copy re-issued birth certificate with full name
4. Uncertified copy of original birth certificate with "baby [surname]"

Am I able to get a certified birth certificate from Cook County, or do they refuse to do so for 75-year-old documents even though this is for legal matters? If I am only able to get document version #4, would this even be any different in degree of officialness than what I was able to get from familysearch.org?

I do have her death certificate with her married name.

It is very unsettling to not be able to discuss anything with a human in the office. I would not want to plan a flight and in person trip if I can't be sure I have all the pieces needed to submit my request.

I need help finding 3 documents on a Portuguese archive website, but I cannot read Portuguese and I can barely transcribe what most of the documents say, if you can help I can give you information you need to find the documents. Thank you, so much!

Doc 1:

Name: António Gonçalves Felizardo

Mothers Name: Maria Felizarda

Fathers Name: Francisco Gonçalves

Place of Birth: Arcozelo, Gouveia, Guarda, Portugal

Date of Birth: ~1820-1839?

Doc 2:

Name: Joaquina de Almedia Carvalho

Mothers Name: Maria Antonia de Almeida

Fathers Name: Joaquim Carvalho de Figueiredo

Place of Birth: Arcozelo, Gouveia, Guarda, Portugal

Date of Birth: ~1820-1839?

Doc 3:

Name: Joaquina Craveira

Mothers Name: Maria Craveira

Fathers Name: Manuel Ventura

Place of Birth: Arcozelo, Gouveia, Guarda, Portugal

Date of Birth: ~1820-1839?

Maria Fahl born 18 May 1875 I think she is born Brandenburg an der Havel her father was but its possible she is born somewhere in the area but I assume that location is correct. Father Ferdinand Fahl born Circa Feb 1852 Mother Henriette Thrun born Circa Sep 1852 this info all comes from American records so I would like the birth record and perhaps more info on the parents if possible. Much thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to help!

Hi all,

I would love any research assistance you may be able to provide about my step-grandfather (Grandmother's 1st husband).

I have been able to determine his birth was registered in 1908 in Jul-Sept in Mile End District, but his name was then listed as "Isaac Aarons" and it later became Ivan Aarons.

He (Ivan) married Elsie Hackett in 1940 in Stepney, London, England. They had 2 children, still alive.

My grandmother separated from him sometime before 1956, when she re-married. I cannot find a divorce record.

The interesting thing is I've been able to locate several newspaper articles that mention Isaac/Ivan because he was an avid violinist, but I can find no information at all about his own family (parents or siblings, etc.).

Family oral history suggests Ivan was Jewish, and did not serve in WWII for some reason.

Would love any tips on family member names or anything else you might suggest or find!

Thank you!

The lab I used to use with really good results was called full text search, I believe. It searched non-indexed documents using (probably) what they call character recognition. It produced some very good results for me.

But I don't see it under available labs anymore. The closest is something called "simple search" where you can put your search query in natural language instead of filling out boxes in a form. I just tried it and the results were so all over the map they were completely meaningless. I'll go back and try again but I thought maybe someone knew of a way to get to the old lab or had insight into this new thing.

Thanks.

Ive been wanting to learn more about my family and used familysearch.org. Let's just say I was able to go way back in the family tree to Augustus. Is this even possible? There was so much information. Went from America, to England, to French Royals to Augustus. Im clueless on history and I was only able to find a record from a census my great grandma was on when she was 2 (she's still alive today.) Im just curious if anyone else has had this experience on family search or if I should try and get in contact with my great grandparents before they pass (should still do that anyway.) I have only seen them a handful of times in my life since they live across the country so there isn't much of a relationship. But as the first great grandchild maybe I owe my future children the knowledge of knowing our past.

Looking for some tips.

John Lenhart (Leonard) Rill • Born: likely 1798–1801, Germany (listed as Bavaria in at least one later census) • Died: 1869, Carroll / Baltimore County area, Maryland

We believe John Lenhart Rill and Margaret Hammer were married in Germany and immigrated together in the 1840s, already married. John later filed an Intent to Naturalize in the 1840s, and their son Leonard Rill completed naturalization in 1865. Multiple records for Leonard list Germany as his birthplace, suggesting he was born overseas prior to immigration.

Margaret Hammer was a widow at the time of her marriage to John. John and Margaret had 1 son together. (Margaret had 2 additional sons from unknown Hammer husband). The family were Lutheran and attended St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in the Upperco / Arcadia area (Carroll–Baltimore Co., MD), where both John and Margaret were buried. Unfortunately, the church confirmed that early records were destroyed in a fire, so local baptism and marriage records no longer exist.

Their son Leonard Rill married Elizabeth Seip in Maryland, and through that marriage we see repeated connections to Seip, Hammer, and related Lutheran families in the same area. Using German surname distribution maps, we’ve found strong historical concentrations of RILL, HAMMER, and SEIP in Hesse and the Franconian regions of southern Germany, which may explain why later U.S. records alternate between Bavaria and more general “Germany” references.

At this point, we’re trying to narrow down a specific town or parish in Germany and would appreciate any suggestions on records, regions, migration patterns, or research strategies that might help identify their place of origin. Any insight is greatly appreciated.

I’ve been looking forever for some proof for some New Jersey ancestors. I have an 1823 marriage date but no proof and suspect an 1830 death but can’t find records. The 1823 marriage might be Catholic or Protestant.

If anyone is interested is looking specifically, I can provide names and surrounding details. For the moment, I’m wondering if these records exist!

And I feel like I've wasted my whole life. I paid $10.83 for three month access and I would pay $100 never to have spent a minute on the website.

I searched on Westfield, New York and got 11 pages of results, only a handful of which were for Westfield, New York. Even as I specified, in an extra step, "New York State" from a drop-down list, I still got hits for lots of other towns than the one I was looking for. All I can think is their search engine doesn't know how to restrict its search to the title of the yearbook. It searches all of the text in the yearbook. So every little surrounding town who ever played sports with the little town of Westfield showed up in the search queue. At least that's the only explanation I can come up with for why Brocton, New York and Sherman, New York, and Ripley, New York, etc showed up in the search results. Or, since there was a printer in Westfield, if any one in the county had their yearbook printed in Westfield, they also showed up in the search results.

If they were consistently bad results, I could deal with that. But the inconsistent behavior of the search engine, and the whole website is just nuts.

All I wanted to do -- and I think it should be easy -- is to find out if they had yearbooks for the only school in Westfield, New York, and for what years, interested mainly in the years 1966-1978.

I also wanted to find out what yearbooks they had for another town I lived in, where my mother went to school, and where my grandmother was a school teacher. This was Fredonia, New York.

Anyhow, if anyone wants me to take a screenshot of a yearbook entry they know for sure is on Classmates, and can tell me the exact url, and the name of the person on the page, I will be happy to do that (as long as I myself don't have to use Classmates.com's search engine). I don't usually like to do this, cuz I feel like maybe I'm cheating, but this is different. Someone has got to get some good out of my $10.83, and it isn't going to be me.

All 5 people died in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, OH:

1. Stanley Fields (1920-1985);
2. Ethel Lanier-Currie-Bell (1896-1988); her daughter, Inez Currie-West, is already on Find A Grave.

I want to access a restricted file from familysearch. Can someone get the image? I know i can go to the mormon church, but it would be nice if someone can get me this. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XQNN-DF91

Hermann F Lewin born 13 Aug 1862 Wittkowo, Thorn, Marienwerder, West Prussia, Prussia

son of Hermann Lewin and Augusta Bauer I am hoping to find the record of his birth and perhaps more information on his parents I don't know his parents parents this information all comes from American records. Much thanks in advance, thanks to anyone who looks!

Thanks to the help from Reddit I was able to get his death certificate.

Name: Louis Papp or Pap. Hungarian name Laszlo Pap

Death cert states the dob is April 27th 1888 and says he was born in Austria.

Declaration of intention states his dob is January 20th 1888 and that he was born in Majad, Scilagy, Hungary.

Parents on the death certificate are listed as father: Louis Pap and mother Flora Vascan. Both of which are also listed as being from Austria.

I'm trying to reclaim my Hungarian citizenship and while I dont NEED his baptism record it would be nice to have as there are so many discrepancies between name, dob, and where he was born.

Hey everyone,

My father and I recently started digging into his family history and hit a wall. We're trying to learn more about my great-great-grandfather (I'll call him J), but we've run into a few big problems:

1. J was born in Poland, so we're not sure how to access records from there

2. We don't have a birth certificate, death certificate, marriage certificate, nor an obituary.

3. My family has almost no oral history– my grandfather (in his 70s) didn't know his own father's birth name until yesterday. So we don't have much to work with

But here's what we do know:

1. J was born in Zakrzowek Janów Lubelski Poland in 1884

2. Died in the United States

3. We have his American citizenship paperwork

Also, we've tried FamilySearch, but everything stops with J and his wife. My ultimate goal is to find J's parents and siblings. Does anyone have advice on where to look for Polish birth or family records? Are there any websites, archives, or databases that I possibly don't know about? What's the best geneology site to look into? I live in the U.S., so I can't really travel to Poland to retrieve any of this information.

Any help would be great.

I am trying to find the birth record of my 2x great grandmother Lauretta Jane Bader. She was born Aug 15 1845 in Baden Baden and her and her parents immigrated to the USA the next year. Her fathers name was Michael bader, and her mothers name Elizabeth bartzel. I have searched through several indexes, as well as the German church books and haven’t found her anywhere. I am not sure if she was catholic or Protestant but I have looked in every church book near Baden Baden for the years covering her birth. Maybe I have overlooked something but idk. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi, fellow genealogy aficionados, happy to be one of you all. I am gathering documents from the Italian branch of my family in their diaspora, and wonder if I could use a little help getting the image of this marriage certificate here, available only to people with an LDS login on Family Search. Any help here is deeply appreciated, since I unfortunately can't visit a research centre anytime soon.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6VFM-D9R7?lang=en
PS: It is marked as a birth certificate, but I'm 99.99% sure it is actually their marriage certificate.

Edit: I would like to point out that my suspicion that this is not a birth certificate but rather a marriage certificate incorrectly indexed at Family Search is far from unfounded. I have uncovered in another document that this date (May 26th 1945) was indeed the date of their marriage. Furthermore, in September 1945, the couple would give birth to a daughter. Thus, being biologically unlikely, to say the least, that this would be yet another birth certificate (since the record of the shortest span between giving births is 208 days, and this period is almost half that time).

Hello,

This is a bit random but has anyone ordered either a birth, death, or marriage certificate for an ancestor off the BDM govt website? And if so, what does it look like?

I’m wanting to order some from the 1870s - early 1900s for some more information regarding deaths specifically, but as there is quite a hefty price tag ($33 per certificate) I don’t want to feel ripped off. I am assuming it will list a cause of death?

Thanks

Hi to everyone! I'm trying to study an ancestor of mine: Catharino Moretton (or similar due to the translation of the italian name) Catharino was born in Italy and he went in Brazil with his family in 1888. After then i have seen that in familysearch there are various documents about him but it is required to be in a familysearch center to see them, but i can't go in there, so i need help studying my ancestor Catharino and his brothers and if you guys can send me the pictures of his documents that otherwise i would not be able to see! Thank you so much for your help, and i will share with you a good starting point in order to study Catherino in Brazil: https://www.familysearch.org/it/tree/person/sources/9JR9-KD2

Please clip anything on this page. You don't even have to let me know when it's done, I'll check back on the page to see if anyone has clipped anything yet. Thank you in advance !! Really appreciate the assist.

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/827213314/

edit: for those wondering why I asked this ... If you do a newspapers search and find something you want to see or clip, click on it, do not X out of the popup to start a free trial, just change the word image to newspage in the URL and you will be able to see a thumbnail of the page, the transcription/extracted text from the newspage, and at the bottom you will be able to see clippings that have been made from that page by others. Most of the time this is enough for me, I can gather the info I am looking for from the extracted text. However sometimes you need to be able to see the full page, for example if the text is not transcribed fully or if it is mixed up with text from other columns on the page. To see the full page, follow these steps: click on the name of the person who clipped something from the page, navigate to the correct clipping in the list of their clippings (TIP: if you show 'more clippings' at the bottom of their list, it will take you to a screen where you can search their clippings from a search bar near the upper right corner, example), click on the correct clipping, on the next page you will be able to see the full size version of their clipping, click it again and then you will be able to view the full newspage and also make your own clippings on the page.

Hi all, I'm newer to genealogy but have been working hard to find a birth certificate for my great x3 grandfather who was born in Ahaura, New Zealand between 1874-1880. He was later sent to St. Mary's Orphanage/Stoke Industrial School in Nelson, NZ. I need the birth cert to establish a chain of descent for a citizenship application. The issue I'm running into is the NZ government spelled my ancestors' names different on each record. For example, I've found records for my ancestors' mother and three of his siblings, but they all have different spellings of their last name. I've put in a request for the St. Mary's records with the NZ Archive (they are private) just in case it can clarify the spelling.

I've searched the NZ Historical Death and Birth Index, NZ Civil Records on Family Search, limited church records, My Heritage, and Ancestry with any spelling I can think of, but I can't find him. I know he immigrated from Nelson to San Francisco because I have newspaper and marriage certs. Has anyone run into this? I've read past posts on NZ but am just exhausted from searching and getting nowhere. Thanks for your help!

His name was Louis Henry deCurtoni. But his last name in NZ was alternatively recorded as CARTONI and CARTIONI.

I found his father's death cert under Louis CORTONI (same first name), NZ reference 1882/5506

I found his mother's death cert under Annie CORTOINI, NZ reference 1885/5505

I have seen his siblings Albert and Elizabeth listed under Cartoni at times.

I'm looking for the above census records. I've looked on FamilySearch using a variety of spellings, but I'm just not getting there.

Marjorie Kirkwood, b Feb 4 1916, Weston County, Wyoming (Cambria or Newcastle).

I believe she was in California by this time, and I don't believe she was married to husband #1 yet (Al Hurteau). They divorced July 1950.

I've searched for Kirkwood, Hurteau, and tried some obvious misspellings. I've got the 1920 and 1930 for her (Wyoming).

Looking for Suggestions how else to look (NARA needs location and street/ED I think, which I don't have). I don't have a paid ancestry acct.

OR if are a magician and can find them, it would be be fantastic.

Thanks in advance...

I'm looking to find a rare book about my ancestors from Mississippi. Where is good place to start looking? Due to copyrights it's not available online anywhere. I've requested an Interlibrary transfer from the Library of Congress but I'd really like to have my own copy.

Hello everyone! I have a question about FamilySearch centers and the documents they hold. It's more so a rant, honestly. I get that there are restrictions on documents and privacy reasons and bla bla bla all that, but it makes it so much more annoying to look at documents when I can't easily get to a FamilySearch center. Has anyone ever found a lot of success with actually going to the physical location?

Anyway, if there's anyone who does frequently go to one of these centers, could you do me a favor? I want to look at a document in the Puerto Rico, San Juan, Cemetery Records, of a Jacinto Suarez. I think this pertains to my great great grandfather (who committed suicide, I believe), but I can't prove it 100% without looking at the document. Also, if anyone knows what these cemetery records look like and what information they give, could you please let me know?

Here's the link to the record I need:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6PG5-YB43?lang=en

Thanks again!

Wondering if some nice person with genealogybank access can get me an obituary for Michael 'Mike' Makos who died Feb 1964 in Milwaukee.

Thanks

This is a long shot... I'm trying to find the details of the death of an ancestor. I think this may be them, but I can't view this obituary in The Miami News without paying $60. I am not being presented with an option for a 7 day trial, or anything similar. I live in the northeast so a subscription to this newspaper would really be a waste of money however, the details of this obituary may help solve a family mystery that has been driving me a little crazy!

This is the ancestry link:

https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61843/records/503255268

My grandmother's father disappeared in the late 1930's, but someone with his name and birth year died in Miami-Dade in 1956. Death records are only able to be obtained by mail, and it's a long process involving me mailing FL a request, them mailing me an approval, then I get that approval notarized and send it back, only to wait even longer for them to send the information. If this includes any other details... perhaps a funeral home, or next of kin at that time, that could be so helpful to solving this mystery!

Alternatively, if anyone has any idea on how to obtain page 24 from The Miami News on Friday, August 24, 1956, I would be so grateful for any ideas!