People for Better Pennsylvania Historical Records Access (PaHR-Access)

Vital Records Currently Available Online

Note:

We have included links to the few Pennsylvania vital records available online we could find. Most of these are county birth, marriage and death records and in the cases of birth and death records are predominately from before 1906. Except for the Philadelphia death records 1803-1915 and Pittsburgh death records 1870-1905 all are only indexes or extracted data. The Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, PA death records include scanned images with the cause of death and are those recorded by the cities and not any of those kept by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Below the links for Pennsylvania vital records are the links for those states for which there is free online access to their older government birth, marriage and death records comparable to Pennsylvania's state vital records, i.e. starting in 1906. So far the death certificates for eighteen states, Washington, DC and numerous counties and birth records for five states and marriage records for a number of states have been scanned and the images are available online also fee free.

Extracted data from the older state death records of Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington, but these databases do not include scanned images of the death certificates at this time.

Scanned images of the state birth, marriages and death records of Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, Virginia and Washington are available online through Ancestry.com. Ancestry also has extracted data from births, marriages and deaths for Rhode Island. However access to the records requires a subscription to Ancestry, but at least they are available to the public at large by some means (many libraries and LDS Family History Centers have a subscription to Ancestry and people can access these records without paying for subscription by going to these libraries and centers).

Private concerns have sporadically extracted the information and it is available on different websites which often require payment for access. There have also been a number of indexes developed with some state run and some privately run (See "Online Searchable Death Indexes for the USA" far down below). Where To Write For Vital Records" will take you to each state's health or vital records agencies' websites where you can find further information on the various requirements and restrictions in each state.

At this link is our rundown of the overall accessibility and availability of birth and death records and indexes for every state as best as we can determine:

http://users.rcn.com/pahraccess/PaHR-Access-statesall.htm

Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission through Ancestry.com)

(statewide births certificates 1906-1908 & deaths certificates 1906-1964)

http://www.phmc.pa.gov/Archives/Research-Online/Pages/Ancestry-PA.aspx

Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission)

(statewide birth indices 1906-1910)

http://www.phmc.pa.gov/Archives/Research-Online/Pages/Birth-Indices.aspx

(statewide death indices 1906-1965)

http://www.phmc.pa.gov/Archives/Research-Online/Pages/Death-Indices.aspx

Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission) (also available on Ancestry.com)

(statewide marriage records 1885-1889)

http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/

Pennsylvania (Family Search)

(civil marriage records 1677-1950)

Tim Gruber