New Hampshire: Resources for Vital Records
John Fipphen
In New Hampshire, vital events are officially recorded at the town or
city clerk's office. Today each town or city sends copies of its vital
events to the Bureau of Vital Records. Statewide compilation, however,
did not begin until 1866, when it was mandated by law, and total
compliance was not achieved until the 1880s. The Bureau of Vital Records
was established in 1905 and holds records from 1640 to the present. For
births, marriages, and deaths to the present, write: New Hampshire
Division of Public Health Services, Bureau of Vital Records and Health
Statistics, 6 Hazen Drive, Concord, NH 03301-6527; phone: 603-271-4651.
The public has access to records for births prior to 1901 and deaths and
marriages prior to 1937; these are at 6 Hazen Drive in the Health and
Welfare building.
Events are recorded on cards measuring 3 3/8 by
7 3/4 inches. Each card contains a single event. The cards are filed in
row upon row of oak filing drawers. To access information, the
researcher must look up the drawer location of the record on a finding
chart. The filing system is unique and usually confuses the uninitiated.
Records are filed according to the first and third letter of the
surname. The researcher must submit a request slip with the name sought
and the drawer number to the volunteer in charge of the research room.
The volunteer then retrieves the file drawer and selects a group of
cards, which should include the desired record. Since the research room
is staffed by volunteers from the New Hampshire Society of Genealogists,
the vault room is not open to the public if a volunteer is unavailable.
Fortunately, this has occurred very rarely in recent years.
There
is some danger in this system of records being misfiled or even lost
after use. But many times the researcher finds previously unknown
information about the family. Because the cards are filed in this unique
manner, the researcher has to keep in mind that the name they are
seeking may be filed under a different, or in the case of the large
French-Canadian population in the state, Anglicized spelling. Marriage
records are filed according to the groom's last name in the master
files. There is no similar record filed according to the bride's last
name. There is, however, a bride's list on microtext, which is readily
available in the Search Room. These cards contain the same information
as that which is on the grooms' cards but are filed according to brides'
last name.
The restricted access vault contains the more recent
records, which are stored in volumes. In order to gain access or get a
copy of a record, a researcher has to demonstrate relationship to the
person whose record is sought. New Hampshire has been using an interim
computerized system for about two years in 120 of the state's 234 towns.
When someone requested a certified copy of a family record, a clerk
would look up the paper record, key the information into a computer, and
then print out a copy.
Recently the New Hampshire Bureau of
Vital Records and Health Statistics became the first state in the
country to replace its paper system of recording births, deaths, and
marriages, so-called vital records, with a computerized database and
imaging system. New Hampshire now possesses the first state-of-the-art
system in the country for vital record retention and accumulation. The
new system makes it possible for researchers to obtain copies of these
records at local town or city clerk's office instead of having to travel
to Concord or the city where the events originally were recorded. State
officials realized they weren't taking full advantage of technology.
Getting
the system in place meant changing some laws. For instance, electronic
signatures had to be allowed to stand in for hand signing, and the
requirement that records be stored itat the local levels had to be
amended. Computerizing the system begins to solve another looming
problem: local officials have been running out of space to store
records. The State Vital Records division, for example, was running out
of room in the confidential records vault, where recent records are
kept. All new records will be kept on computer instead of on the shelves
and file cabinets that line the current vault. As funds permit, older
records will be entered into the database.
As of the fall of
1998, the system was up and running in six pilot communities: Concord,
Keene, Nashua, Exeter, Dover, and Littleton. Hospitals, funeral
directors, and town clerks in these communities have been filing vital
records electronically. The information is then transmitted either by
modem or via an internet server to Concord. As for the rest of the
state, everything depends on the budget. It is expected that the state
will be able to fund 25 to 50 new municipal installations a year.
Information retrieval has now been simplified. Once the records are
stored in the database, a clerk need only type in the requested record
and the information appears on the screen, ready to be printed out. The
resulting copy is neat, accurate, and virtually indistinguishable from a
typed copy.