Early Texas Birth Records, Eighteen Thirty-Eight to Eighteen Seventy-Eight

Many persons believe that birth records in Texas were not kept until 1903. However, the Texas Constitution Convention of 1869 called for the registration of births, deaths, marriages in every organized county and such was set up by legislative action in 1873 and repeled in 1876. A few counties continued to keep birth records of which the number was 43 counties. Of these, 25 counties had their original books. Often when registering a child born during the years 1873-1878, the parents would list all of their previous children, hence there are many quite early dates, as early as 1838. Counties for which birth records are found in this volume are: Anderson, Austin, Bandera, Bastrop, Bell, Bexar, Brazos, Burnett, Caldwell, Cameron, Cass, Cherokee, Colorado, Comal, Comanche, Dallas, DeWitt, Fannin, Fayette, Gillispie, Gregg, Grimes, Hays, Kaufman, Kendall, Lamar, Lavaca, Lee, Marion, Medina, Menard, Nacogdoches, Navarro, Nueces, Rusk, San Saba, Somerville, Travis, Upshur, Victoria, Washington, and Webb.Sumner, Jane is the author of 'Early Texas Birth Records, Eighteen Thirty-Eight to Eighteen Seventy-Eight', published 2002 under ISBN 9780893081300 and ISBN 0893081302.