Cincinnati Birth and Death Records, 1865-1912

This is a collection of over 528,000 records. The original official records are owned by the City of Cincinnati and housed in the Archives and Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati Libraries, University of Cincinnati. The records, consisting of index cards, were created by the Cincinnati Health Department several decades ago and are considered the official and legal records of births and deaths for this time period.

While the bulk of these records begin in 1865, a small number of records show earlier dates. It is believed that these early records reflect the "restoration" of vital documents by citizens after the 1884 Hamilton County Courthouse fire, and were eventually sent to the City of Cincinnati Health Department for recording.

From this page you may browse and search across all records in this Community, or, to limit your results to a span of years, select a Collection below. Browse Subjects and enter 'cause' to jump to Cause of Death; browse subjects and enter 'occupation' to browse occupations of a parent or a deceased individual. Names of those born or deceased, parent names, cause of death and occupations are all found in the subject index.

For more search tips and information about the scope of this collection, see the Digital Collections web site.