Many people want to know who their ancestors were. Genealogy is one of the fastest growing hobbies. Birth records give vital information as to who a person was. What kind of information is found in a birth record?

• The date of the birth. Many people do not know when their grandparents were born. This information can provide a complete picture of a person’s life. If the birth certificate says a person was born in 1898, the person lived through the Great Depression and two world wars. By knowing when a person was born from the birth record, you can piece together an accurate picture of a person’s life.
  
  
• Day and time of the birth. Many people remember the old childhood rhyme that begins, “Monday’s child is full of grace…” And it is fun to know if you were a child that came in the middle of the night or decided to make an appearance during sensible business hours.
  
  
• Where a person was born. Birth records are recorded in the county where the person was born. By searching birth records, you may find that your relative was born on an exotic island or a snowy, mountain town; while you believed they were born in your hometown. You may find that a person was born in the same hospital as someone famous—maybe even on the same day!
  
  
• A person’s parents. Many people do not know who their great grandparents or their great-great grandparents were. Many amateur genealogists have found they have famous relatives by researching birth records and tracing their family line.
  
  
• How much a person weighed and their length. This information can be important if there is a history of high or low birth weights in children because these are significant health risks. However, more often than not this information on a birth record is just fun to know!
  
  
• The attending physician. Were you delivered by a famous doctor? Or were you delivered by a doctor who is a local legacy in your community. You may have been a baby who couldn’t wait to make an appearance and was born in a car, at home or in another place other than a medical facility.

How do you get access to this interesting information? You could spend hours driving from county to county and even through different states looking for birth records. This also takes a lot of money, but some genealogists love to take trips just to search for records. But in the late 90s, the Internet became a popular place for people who loved genealogy to search for birth records. Online record searches put birth certificate information from across the country in one place. In most cases, an online search for a birth certificate costs a person less than $10. Some online record search companies charge less than $100 for multiple birth record searches. Searching for birth records using an online record search company is the cheapest and fastest way to get information.