Texas genealogy records

Births and deaths

State registration of births and deaths began in 1903, when the State Department of Public Health and Vital Statistics was set up. TSLAC warns that it was as late as the 1930s before births and deaths were consistently recorded, so a missing certificate from the 1910s does not mean the event never happened. For anything before 1903, the only official records are whatever the county clerk kept in the county where the birth or death took place.

TSLAC holds printed and microfilm indexes published by the state health department: births from 1903 (one index for 1903 to 1909, then one per year) and deaths from 1903 (one index for 1903 to 1940, then grouped and later yearly). The indexes give the date, the county, and often the certificate file number. Look for the notation Inf of, meaning infant of, in place of a first name, and note that women are sometimes listed under their husband's first name. TSLAC does not hold the certificates themselves.

Many Texans born before registration later filed a delayed birth certificate. The state began registering these in 1939, and they can cover births as early as 1880. TSLAC says many of them are digitized on its Texas Digital Archive, arranged by certificate number.

Ordering a certificate

Copies of certificates come from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) Vital Statistics Section or the county where the event happened. According to DSHS, birth certificates are not open records: access is restricted to qualified applicants for 75 years from the date of birth. Death certificates are restricted for 25 years from the date of death, and within that window only immediate family members can request a copy.

If you only need proof that a record exists, DSHS can issue a verification letter for births and deaths since 1903. It gives the name, date, and county, but it is not a substitute for a certified copy. Some older certificates and indexes are also online; FamilySearch, for example, lists free collections of Texas birth certificates from 1903 to 1935 and Texas deaths from 1890 to 1976.

Marriages and divorces

Texas did not register marriages at the state level until 1966, and divorces until 1968. Before that, the marriage record is at the county clerk's office in the county where the license was issued, and the divorce is with the district clerk of the county that granted it. Even after 1966, TSLAC notes that certified marriage records only come from the county clerk. The state indexes it holds run from 1966 to 2005 for marriages and from 1968 to 2005 for divorces.

Census records

The first United States census of Texas was taken in 1850, starting on June 1, with separate schedules for free inhabitants, slave inhabitants, mortality, agriculture, manufactures, and social statistics. The slave schedule listed each enslaved person by age, sex, and color but not by name. The 1880 census was the first to state each person's relationship to the head of the household.

The Republic of Texas took no census during its decade of independence. A state census was taken in 1847, and a state agency made another count in 1887, but the published results are county-by-county totals rather than lists of names. Most of the 1890 federal census was destroyed by fire, so the 1880 and 1900 counts carry the weight for that era.

Land and the General Land Office

Land in Texas was granted by Spain, Mexico, the Republic, and the state, and the original grant files are kept by the Texas General Land Office. TSLAC describes the GLO as caring for about 35.5 million documents on land grants and transactions dating back to the 18th century.

Under Mexico's colonization law of 1825, heads of families could obtain as much as a league of grazing land and a labor of cropland for a small fee, and empresarios who brought in settlers received land as payment. The Republic then issued headright certificates in classes. Heads of families living in Texas on March 4, 1836, received a first class headright of one league and one labor (4,605.5 acres), and single men aged 17 or older one third of a league. Later classes gave smaller grants to people who arrived by 1837, 1840, and 1842. The Republic and the state also gave bounty and donation grants for military service. Each file can show when a man arrived, whether he had a family, and where he settled.

Wills, deeds, and other county records

Most everyday records were kept by the county: deeds, probate and wills, naturalizations, voter registrations, tax payments, and court records. TSLAC's Regional Historical Resource Depository program, working with what is now FamilySearch, microfilmed many of these between the 1970s and early 1990s. Not every county or record type was filmed, so check the TSLAC list of county records on microfilm for your county first.

County tax rolls, which TSLAC holds for many counties from the early years through the late 1970s, are a useful year-by-year substitute for a census: they show who owned land and livestock in a county and when a person appears or disappears.

Military, Republic, and newspaper sources

Texas paid pensions to Confederate veterans. The TSLAC index lists some 54,634 approved, rejected, and home pensions issued by the Texas government between 1899 and 1975, with name, county of residence, and pension number. It indexes pension applications only, so a veteran who never applied will not be in it. TSLAC also has Adjutant General service records and lists of Confederate families who needed aid under an 1863 act.

For the Republic years, look at the Republic Claims series, which covers claims for payment submitted by citizens from 1835 to 1846, and the small set of Republic of Texas passports. For obituaries and local news, TSLAC keeps microfilm and print newspapers, and Texas residents can reach several newspaper databases through TexShare libraries.