Minnesota City and Township Birth Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

United States Minnesota

What is in the Collection?
The collection consists of digital images of city and township birth records from various county courthouses for the years 1871 to 1947. This collection includes townships in the following counties:


 * Anoka
 * Blue Earth
 * Cottonwood
 * Freeborn
 * Hennepin
 * Lyon
 * Ramsey
 * Renville
 * Washington
 * Yellow Medicine

Notes about this collection:


 * The year range will vary by county.
 * Confidential information (illegitimate births and adoptions) has been masked from this collection.
 * Some of the records in this collection may be duplicated in the collection “Minnesota County Births 1863-1983.”

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
Birth records usually include the following genealogical information:


 * Date of birth
 * City, county, and state of birth
 * State or country and sometimes town and county of birth for the parents (usually included)
 * Parents’ names (usually includes the mother’s maiden name)
 * Gender
 * Residence or address of parents
 * Name of person attending the birth such as a midwife or doctor.

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search, it is helpful to know:


 * The name of the child
 * The approximate birth date
 * The birth place of the child
 * The names of the parents

View images in this collection by visiting the Browse Page: To search the collection you will need to follow this series of links: ⇒Select "Browse through images" on the initial collection page ⇒Select the appropriate "County" ⇒Select the appropriate "Record Type, Date Range and Volume" which takes you to the images.

Look at each image comparing the information with what you already know about your ancestors to determine if the image relates to them. You may need to look at several images and compare the information about the individuals listed in those images to your ancestors to make this determination. Keep in mind:


 * There may be more than one person in the records with the same name.
 * You may not be sure of your own ancestor’s name.
 * Your ancestor may have used different names or variations of their name throughout their life.

What Do I Do Next?
When you have located your ancestor’s birth record, carefully evaluate each piece of information about them. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?

 * Use the birth date along with the place of birth to find the family in census records.
 * Use the residence and names of the parents to locate church and land records.
 * The father’s occupation can lead you to other types of records such as employment records or military records.
 * The parents’ birth places can tell you former residences and can help to establish a migration pattern for the family.
 * It is often helpful to extract the information on all children with the same parents. If the surname is unusual, you may want to compile birth entries for every person of the same surname and sort them into families based on the names of the parents. Continue to search the birth records to identify siblings, parents, and other relatives in the same or other generations who were born in the same county or nearby.

I Can't Find Who I'm Looking for, What Now?

 * Look for variant spellings of the names. You should also look for alias names, nicknames and abbreviated names.
 * Look for a different index. Local genealogical and historical societies often have indexes to local records.
 * Search the records of nearby localities.

For a summary of this information see the wiki article: United States, How to Use the Records Summary (FamilySearch Historical Records).

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation:

Image Citation