NEW- Minnesota Birth Index Online

The Minnesota Historical Society has added the Minnesota Birth Index to their online site, starting with years 1900-1911, with years being added as the project proceeds. The site is located at http://people.mnhs.org/bci. As with the Minnesota Death Index, the researcher can search by Soundex or exact surname, always helpful with immigrant names often spelled by the clerk as he heard it, not necessarily the way the immigrant would write it out. One can search by year or a range of years and by county or all Minnesota counties, again very helpful once you have located an ancestor with a common surname through the censuses in a particular county. I especially appreciate the mother's maiden name category, helping me to pinpoint children to search in a logical manner and helping me in the eternal and more difficult quest for the maternal lines.

Copy your potential matches, with the entry for year and certificate number and then you can either transcribe or reader-print a hard copy over in the Research Room in St. Paul. The added advantage of Minnesota research is that you also have the newspapers for the state onsite on microfilm and can check all of the relevant entries in the local newspaper(s), although I generally find much more detail in the obituary and wedding announcements for families in the newspapers than in local birth announcements. Happy hunting!