Where To Look For Birth Records Online In Maryland

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Looking for Birth Records in Maryland isn’t difficult, as there are several online channels where you can find them, even as far back as a century ago.

Access to birth records online in Maryland is unrestricted to the general public for births that occurred over a century ago.

You will be able to obtain birth records from the Maryland Archives only for 1924 and earlier. Birth records until the present day may only be found at the Maryland Health and Mental Hygiene Department, reached through the DHMH website.

Birth Records Online in Maryland Archives

The Maryland General Assembly crafted a law governing the registration of births as early as 1654. It became mandatory for citizens within a county's jurisdiction to file a birth notice with the clerk of court.

Very few of these early registers exist today. Examples are the original and/or microfilm of records from Charles County from the 1650s to the early 1700s. The two other county courts with extant records from the era are Somerset and Talbot.

By the 1700s, the Assembly had already enacted a law that transferred the task of birth registration to Protestant vestry clerks.

While the county clerks concurrently registered births alongside their religious counterparts for a time, the register soon became the sole responsibility of the Protestant Episcopal clerks, no matter what denomination the parents' belonged to.

Church registers, therefore, are the primary source of birth data from the colonial era up until the late 1800s.

The Assembly opted to return the birth register to civil status by passing a new law in 1865, which transferred the job to the county circuit court. However, only a few Maryland citizens complied. The church records of the period would be more complete.

Baltimore signed an ordinance in 1874, which aimed to govern the city's birth register. It was so successful that even after the State Health Board started its own the register in 1898 for all counties, Baltimore still kept its own register up to 1972.

As mentioned, by 1898 the Assembly took a second stab at regulating the birth register for all of Maryland and gave the job to the State Health Board. In 1914, the Board was still working towards compliance – so check concurrent records as well.

To learn more information about searching for birth records online in Maryland, visit RecordsSiteReview’s Birth Records section.