Birth Records
South Carolina did not require registration of all births until the passage of SC Statute 1914(29)29, which went into effect in 1915. There are some exceptions where birth certificates may be available from before 1915: a few cities in South Carolina recorded a register of births within their city limits (Aiken, Georgetown, Florence, Spartanburg). Birth certificates are restricted by statute for 100 years after the year of birth. Some birth certificates are sealed for legal reasons and only accessible through the South Carolina Department of Public Health. Those individuals aren’t listed on our index, so if you are unable to find someone on the index then it could be that their record is sealed. If you need a sealed birth certificate or a birth certificate from 1926-present, then you must contact the South Carolina Department of Public Health (SCDPH).
Before delving into the birth certificate search process, make sure to consult census records, death certificates, gravestones, and other genealogical sources to determine more information about the individual. These records can be found on FamilySearch, Ancestry, and FindaGrave.
Information on the certificates may include name, gender, and date of birth of the child; name, birthplace, race, and occupation of the father; name (including maiden name), birthplace, race, and occupation of the mother; whether the child was part of a set of twins, triplets, etc.; whether the child was premature or full-term; legitimate (product of a married couple); whether the child was stillborn; and certification of physician or midwife. They may also include affidavits made by individuals to amend certificates, as well as the amended certificates produced as a result. Amendments were often the result of misspelled or incomplete information on the original certificates. Affidavits for amendment contain the original information, the corrections needed, and a description of the documentation the individual provided to support the changes.
The simplest way to search for birth certificates on SCERA is to review the index for the year in which the individual was born. Download this How To Search Births in SCERA guide for a visual representation of this process. You can access the main page for birth certificates here.
| RECORD | DESCRIPTION | ACCESS |
|---|---|---|
| South Carolina, Births and Christenings, 1681-1935 | This collection contains a name index to birth, baptism and christening records from South Carolina. | FamilySearch |
| South Carolina, Delayed Birth Certificates, 1766-1900 | This collection includes an index and images of delayed birth certificates from South Carolina. | FamilySearch |
| South Carolina, Charleston County, Charleston, Birth Registers, 1901-1926 | This collection contains birth registers for the city of Charleston, South Carolina from 1901-1926. | FamilySearch |
| Georgetown, South Carolina, Register of Births, 1884-1914 | This collection contains a registry of births for the city of Georgetown, South Carolina from 1884-1914. | **SCArchCat |
| Spartanburg, South Carolina, Register of Births, 1895-1925 | This collection contains a registry of births for the city of Spartanburg, South Carolina starting in 1895. | **SCArchCat |
| Florence, South Carolina, Birth and death registrations, 1895-1914 | This collection contains a registry of births for the city of Florence, South Carolina from 1895-1914. | **SCArchCat |
| Aiken, South Carolina, Register of Births, 1909-1910 | This collection contains a registry of births for the city of Aiken, South Carolina from 1909-1910. | **SCArchCat |
| South Carolina, U.S., Births, 1915-1923 | This collection contains birth certificates issued by South Carolina from 1915-1923. | Ancestry |
| South Carolina, Birth certificates, 1915-1925 | This collection contains birth certificates issued by South Carolina from 1915-1925. | SCERA |
**If you would like to request a record from our catalog, you need to fill out the Historical Request Form. Please be as detailed as possible when filling it out. Include the full name of the individual, the date of birth, the City/County born, and the Series Number.
Some things to keep in mind when searching our birth records using the index:
- We recommend conducting varied searches if your original search doesn’t yield the desired results within the index. For instance, if you’re searching for the child’s full name, you may have to begin more broadly by simply searching for part of their name (i.e. last name only, first name only, etc.), then narrowing it further down from there.
- Names may vary slightly due to numerous spelling variations or errors recorded by the original record-takers or indexers of documents, so it may be necessary to search different spellings of a name on the index or common abbreviations for names, such as “WM” for William or “JNO” for John.
- In some instances, on the index, the child’s full name field may contain only the last name of the child and not their first name. The last name listed could either be the mother’s maiden name, or father’s last name.
- Looking through more than one index may be necessary, especially if earlier records indicate that the individual was born “about (abt)” a certain year.
- Not all data on the birth certificate is indexed, but this doesn’t always mean that data isn’t recorded on the birth certificate.
Contact Us
If you have further questions about the birth certificates on SCERA then you can email [email protected]
