Cook County Birth & Death Records to Go Online
Close to 24 million births, marriages and deaths recorded in Cook
County, Illinois, (including Chicago) are being digitized with plans to
make them available online to researchers by early 2008. According to an
article in the /Chicago Tribune/
<
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northwest/chi-digital07sep07,1,4...;,
the documents will be available for free online searching. Once the
person is located, the record could then be downloaded and printed for a
fee. Certified copies will not be available online, nor will Social
Security numbers be made available on the online documents. The records
available will include "birth certificates that are at least 75 years
old, marriage certificates more than 50 years old, and death
certificates more than 20 years old." The records date back to 1871, as
the Chicago Fire of October 8, 1871 destroyed all county vital records
prior to that date.