Chicago Birth Certificates are now online for free at FamilySearch in Illinois, Cook County Birth Certificates, 1878-1922
Chicago Birth Certificates, 1878-1922
About these records
The Chicago birth certificates, sometimes titled "Return of a Birth," were filled out by someone who attended the birth, usually a physician or midwife, and returned to the county clerk. Some certificates mention a penalty fee for not filing a birth report, but even so, many early Chicago and Cook County births weren't registered. In many cases there may not be a birth certificate to be found.
Indexing
These birth certificates are indexed on microfiche Cook County Birth Index, 1871-1916 and in three places online: FamilySearch as Illinois, Cook County Birth Certificates, 1878-1922, the Cook County Clerk's Genealogy Online site and at Ancestry.com as Cook County, Illinois Birth Index, 1916-1935. (Important Note: The Ancestry.com site says that the records are "only" available from the Cook County Clerk's Office but up through 1922 they are accessible online for free at FamilySearch.)
Format
906 microfilm reels
Arrangement
Certificates are arranged numerically by a certificate number that can be found in the Cook County Birth Index or the Chicago Birth Registers.
FHL Catalog
View Entry
Information generally found on these records
- register number
- child's name
- child's sex
- no. of child of this mother
- race or color
- place of birth (street address)
- father's nativity and age (may have more specific birthplace than the birth register entry)
- mother's nativity and age (may have more specific birthplace than the birth register entry)
- father's name
- mother's name (maiden name is generally provided)
- mother's residence, if other than place of confinement
- father's occupation
- name of party attending and making return
Search tips
There may be two or more repeating sets of certificate numbers within a single year. When this is the case, it's likely that the first group is for Jan-Jun and that the second group is for Jul-Dec (or Jan-Apr, May-Aug, Sep-Dec, if there are three divisions), however this rule doesn't always hold true. During the teens, for example, December birth certificates are sometimes found in the first group of films for the following year and when this happens, all of the months may shift, meaning that an April certificate might fall into the second group of certificate numbers rather than into the first.
There are a number of reasons why you might not be able to easily find a Chicago birth certificate:
1) The birth might not have been reported when the child was born. A
January 1912 article in the Chicago Tribune, for example, suggests that
as few as 50% of infants born might have actually been registered at that time.
If the individual lived into the 1940s, consider checking the Chicago Delayed Birth Index.
2) The surname might be spelled in an unexpected way. If you have a birth month and year (from the 1900 census, for example) and you think the surname might be spelled incorrectly in the index, try searching
entries in the Chicago Birth
Registers, 1871-1915. These pages can serve as an alternate
index and they are available on microfilm and online at FamilySearch.
Other sources of birth information include:
- Newspaper Notices (though very few births seem to have been mentioned in the Chicago papers)
Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003
Subscription database; available at Ancestry.com; includes the Chicago Tribune, 1850-1985 and the Chicago Defender, 1921-1975?
- Baptismal records
- School records (check Chicago Board of Education proceedings)
- World War I draft registration cards (available at Ancestry.com)
- Later passenger lists for United States citizens returning from abroad (available at Ancestry.com)
- Passport applications (available on FHL microfilm, at Ancestry.com, and at Footnote.com)