Five Myths about Connecticut Vital Records (colonial period)

Connecticut required the filing of birth, death, and marriage record by the mid-1600s… Yet, the reality of what was recorded and when is a bit complicated. Here are five common myths about Connecticut vital records in the colonial period.

1. Everyone has a birth, marriage, and death certificate as applicable. Unfortunately for researchers, this is absolutely not the case. Recording was required by law, and there were penalties for not filing. However, the penalties seem to have been rarely – if ever – enforced. Town clerks were allowed to charge a fee to file, and their residences (town halls are a product of the 19th century) may have been miles from a family’s farm. An unmotivated family was likely to skip recording. Church attendance was a lot harder to skip – so Congregational records can provide a “back up” source.
2. A family of color will not be recorded. Connecticut’s vital records laws had no restriction based on race. For a free family, the creation of a birth or marriage certificate could provide official confirmation of legal status.
3. The vital record is the best possible documentation of birth, marriage, or death. In the colonial period, Connecticut vital records are typically kept in the family register or family group format. This format has the marriage date of the spouses at the top, followed by the births of their children, and sometimes death dates for various family members. If you take a close look, you’ll often note that the whole record is written in the same hand (or there are maybe two hands). That suggests that large sections of the record are entered at once, rather than when the event occurred. Memory is faulty; there may be errors.
4. The Barbour Collection is a fully accurate transcription of the original birth, marriage, or death record. An early 20th century index and abstract of pre-1850 Connecticut vital records, the Barbour Collection is considered to be largely reliable. However, it is a derivative source: records were transcribed; retyped onto slip cards; and then retyped again into the bound volumes. In some cases, the “original” source was in fact a previously transcription of vital records. Derivative sources risk typos. When in doubt, check the original source.
5. The town clerk’s copy you’re viewing is an original record. This one is sometimes a myth but not always! Paper conservation wasn’t a thing in the mid-to-late 1800s. To protect the early town clerk records, nineteenth century clerks sometimes recopied those records. Since the later transcriptions were in better shape than the originals, the transcription may be what’s microfilmed and placed online. When in doubt, you should be able to consult the original at the clerk’s.