New Jersey, Births - FamilySearch Historical Records

United States New Jersey

What is in the Collection?
The collection consists of an index to selected birth records from various places in New Jersey for the years 1670 to 1980.

Collection Contents
The index may include any of the following:


 * Child’s full name
 * Date and place of child's birth
 * Child's gender and race
 * Whether living or stillborn
 * Father's name, age, occupation and place of birth
 * Mother's maiden name, age and place of birth
 * Child's place of order in family
 * Parents' place of residence

How Do I Search the Collection?
This section provides information on how to search the collection, what to do with information once found, some tips on how to find records, and what to do if no record is found.

To begin your search it is helpful to know the following:


 * Name
 * Identifying information such as date and place of birth

To search this collection by name: Fill in the requested information on the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the individuals in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to find your ancestor. 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.
 * If your ancestor used an alias or a nickname, be sure to check for those alternate names.
 * Even though these indexes are very accurate they may still contain inaccuracies, such as altered spellings, misinterpretations, and optical character recognition errors if the information was scanned.

For tips about searching on-line collections, see the wiki article [[FamilySearch Search Tips and Tricks].

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. For example:


 * Use the name, date and birth place to obtain a copy of the birth record.
 * Use the birth date along with the place of birth and parents' names to find the family in census records.
 * Use the residence and names of the parents to locate church and land records.

Tips to Keep in Mind

 * 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.
 * The information in birth records is usually reliable, but depends upon the reliability of the informant.
 * Earlier records may not contain as much information as the records created after the late 1800s.
 * There is also some variation in the information given from record to record.

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

 * Look for variant spellings of the surnames.
 * Search the indexes and records of nearby localities.
 * Try alternative search methods such as only filling in the surname search box (or the given name search box) on the landing page leaving the other box empty and then click on search. This should return a list of everyone with that particular name. You could then browse the list for individuals that may be your ancestor.

Related Websites

 * About.com
 * New Jersey Genealogy

Related Wiki Articles

 * New Jersey Genealogy
 * New Jersey Vital 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:

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):