Birth Records
The City Archives & Special Collections does not hold copies of Birth Certificates.
- Birth certificates less than 100 years old can be obtained only by relatives or descendants from the Louisiana Department of Health.
- Birth certificates older than 100 years are accessible to the general public and may be obtained from the Louisiana State Archives.
The State Archives holds birth records only for Orleans Parish. The Louisiana Department of Health holds birth records for other parishes only if the birth occurred after 1914. Birth certificates were not required outside of Orleans Parish prior to that date.
Some birth records are available on microfilm at Jefferson Parish Library’s Special Collections:
- Orleans Parish Birth Index, 1790-1897
- Orleans Parish Birth Records, 1819-1892
Louisiana birth records (1911-1923) excluding Orleans Parish are now available on Ancestry.com.
You can search the Louisiana Birth Records Index (below) and order certified copies of birth certificates from the State Archives.
Index to Orleans Parish Birth Records, 1790-1897 is available at the Archives on Microfilm. Only the index has been made available. The birth certificates referenced in the index can be obtained from the Louisiana State Archives. The index is arranged alphabetically, within each year.
Indexing for birth records is also available on Ancestry.com, Heritage Quest and Family Search.
Louisiana Birth Records Index
Search for Louisiana birth records and order copies of birth certificates from the Louisiana State Archives.
Search for birth recordsRecords of the Day Column
Reports of births, marriages and deaths were carried in the “Records of the Day” column of the Times-Picayune.
The data published in the “Records of the Day” column was supplied to the newspaper by the Recorder of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, a city agency under the New Orleans Board of Health. When the city’s separate vital records registry was taken over by the State Vital Records Office in 1974, publication of the “Records of the Day” column was discontinued.
Within the last several years, though, publication of some birth data has been resumed by the Times-Picayune, usually in the Thursday or Sunday “Our Town” or “Picayune” section. These birth listings are irregular, and date of birth is not given. Even in the pre-1974 publication, dates of birth were not listed. One should not assume that a birth listed in the newspaper of October 11, 1947, for example, took place on October 10. The “Records of the Day” column generally did not appear in the Sunday or Monday editions of the newspaper. New Orleans Public Library card holders can access the Times Picayune digitally through the New Orleans Newspapers database.
