Source Information

Minnesota Department of Health. Minnesota, U.S., Birth Index, 1935-2000 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.
Original data: Minnesota. Minnesota Birth Index, 1935-1995. Minneapolis, MN, USA: Minnesota Department of Health.

About Minnesota, U.S., Birth Index, 1935-2000

This database is an index created by the Minnesota Department of Health to approximately 4.2 million births occurring in Minnesota between 1935 and 2000. Information contained in this index includes child's full name, father's full name, mother's maiden name, birth date, birth county, and state file number. With the information provided in this index, you may be able to obtain a copy of a birth certificate. If possible, it is important that you do this because oft times more information is provided in an original record than is provided in its index. For information on how to order a copy of a birth certificate, visit the Minnesota Department of Health website.

In 1907, the Minnesota Vital Records law was enacted, giving the state the responsibility of keeping birth and death records. Their records for births start in 1900 and deaths in 1908. Both are indexed to the present but not available for research in person. There is no statewide marriage index until 1958. The fee ($11 for a birth record and $8 for a marriage or death record) will include a search and a copy of the request record or a statement that the record is not on file. Send to the Minnesota Department of Health, Section of Vital Records, P.O. Box 9441, 717 Delaware Street S.E., Minneapolis, Minnesota 55440.

Taken from Maki, Carol L. "Minnesota," in Ancestry's Red Book, ed. Alice Eichholz. (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1992).

Vital records can be great sources of genealogical information. Besides providing the name of the person for whom the record was created, vital records can provide a wealth of other information. Birth records will generally, but not always, contain the following information: Child - name, birthplace, date of birth, sex, hospital, time of birth; Father - name, race, birthplace, age, occupation; Mother - name, race, birthplace, age, occupation, residence, term of residence in the community, term of pregnancy, marital status, number of other living children, number of other deceased children, number of children born dead.

Modern (post-1910) birth records are maintained by the states. They are extremely valuable, but many researchers, learning birth information from home sources, fail to obtain birth certificates. This reluctance is most unfortunate and can result in an inaccurate or incomplete family genealogy. Modern birth records contain much more information than earlier records. Although birth certificates vary from state to state, most of them share much information in common.

Taken from Cerny, Johni, "Research in Birth, Death, and Cemetery Records." In The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, ed. Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1997).

Updates:
11 Apr 2019: Added 882,001 new records.