Researching Connecticut Records: A Summary

Multiple Sources for Vital Records

Aug 3, 2008

Some colonial era records for Connecticut are available both online and off. More recent records are available from town clerks and the Connecticut Department of Health.

Vital Records offices are located in each of the 169 towns in Connecticut. The vital records registrar in each town is responsible for maintaining a registry of all births, marriages, civil unions and deaths which occur within its town.

Link for Town Clerk Addresses

The Vital Records Office at the Connecticut Department of Public Health maintains a statewide registry of all births, marriages, civil unions and deaths which have occurred in Connecticut since July 1, 1897. For vital records prior to that date, contact the town where the event occurred. You can locate addresses in the Connecticut Town Clerks Directory.

Connecticut State Library

For additional information on pre-1897 vital records, you may also contact the Connecticut State Library's History and Genealogy Unit online or by telephone at (860) 757-6580. At the state library, you will be able to access the Barbour Collection, which includes most Connecticut Vital Records to about 1850. It is the most often used source of early birth, marriage and death records.

Online Connecticut Records

There's a mixture of the bad and the good when it comes to locating early Connecticut public records online.

If a site says you can get instant vital records through Intelius, or through ancestry.com by way of the VitalCheck Network, be advised that these are commercial enterprises which will charge more money than you would have to pay to order by mail those same records from a town vital records registrar.

Searchable Colonial Records

There is an excellent online source for some colonial records of what became the State of Connecticut. It is titled Colonial Connecticut Records and has a searchable index. This site is sponsored by the University of Connecticut.

The university has digitized microfilm copies of 15 volumes of previously published colonial records. They start with court sessions in the late 1630s and go up to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. The citation for the originals is: The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, from April 1636 to October 1776. They were transcribed and published (in accordance with a resolution of the General Assembly) by Brown & Parsons at Hartford, 1850-1890, 15 vols.

Location of Primary Sources

The original archival materials that served as the sources for the text of the published Public Records of the Colony are housed in the State Archives at the Connecticut State Library. Because there are some differences between the texts of the documents as found in the original manuscripts and the transcriptions of those documents in the published volumes, researchers interested in using primary sources are advised to consult the originals in the State Archives.

The precursors to Connecticut were the Connecticut Colony, the Saybrook Colony and the New Haven Colony.

County Formation

Here are the eight Connecticut counties, with the date of their formation, the parent county and the names of the county seats:

The copyright of the article Researching Connecticut Records: A Summary in Vital Record Resources is owned by Rosemary E. Bachelor. Permission to republish Researching Connecticut Records: A Summary in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.