US, Alabama—County Birth Registers, 1881–1930

About This Collection

Alabama, County Birth Registers, 1881-1930 are now available online at FamilySearch.org for those who are researching Alabama ancestors. The records come from multiple county probate judges in Alabama. The type of information that you might learn from these registers include:

• Name of the child – Often the proper name is not used on future records such as the US Census, so it is good to have this record.
• Birth date
• Birthplace – The fact the county of birth is given is important because if the person migrated that information could be vital.
• Gender
• Race
• Names of the parents – If the child is unnamed, this becomes most important.
• Maiden name of mother – Finding the maternal grandparents is much easier with knowledge of the maiden name.
• Occupation and address of parents
• Father’s birthplace – If given, it is easier to find the child’s paternal grandparents.
• Mother’s birthplace – With the maiden name and the birthplace of mother given, the maternal grandparents are easier to find.
• Number in order of birth – The more children there are the easier to find the child’s family

For an in depth look at this record set, please see the collection’s Learn More page.

Researching From This Collection

We found a child whose parents were Henry Jackson and Fannie Brown Jackson in Sumter County, Alabama:

On 2 April 1912, Henry Jackson, 35, and Fannie Brown Jackson, 28, had an unnamed daughter in Sumter County, Alabama. She was the 10^th child of her father and mother. It would be great to find out what this child’s name was. The 1920 US Census might name her along with some or all of the other nine children.

Then I would step back to search for the child’s grandparents, especially Fannie’s mother and father, with her maiden name given. You can look for the deaths of the children by searching the parents.

Related Resources

The FamilySearch Wiki page African American Resources for Alabama provides more resources for African American genealogy research in Alabama.

To learn more about researching in Alabama, you can view BlackProGen LIVE Ep18: Alabama and Georgia Genealogy Research.

More FamilySearch Wiki Resources for African American Genealogy

Researching African American Genealogy provides step-by-step guidance for beginning your ancestor search, as well as links to online resources.

Quick Guide to African American Records contains information on beginning research tips, links to suggested guides for beginning your search for African American ancestors, overviews of major record sets, tips for finding the slaveholder, links to tutorials for African American genealogy in the FamilySearch Learning Center, and links to other online and offline resources.

Southern States Slavery and Bondage Collections will help you locate digitized searchable collections as well as digitized microfilms in the FamilySearch catalog related to slavery and bondage. The page is arranged by state. 

African American Genealogy provides links to Wiki pages for researching African Americans in each U.S. state.