FYI, the Mayflower Society does NOT require certified birth, marriage and death certificates. In fact, we would prefer either photocopies or “genealogy” copies. In general, we prefer not to have documents that could be used for identity theft.
Please do note that birth, marriage and death certificates need to be the “long form” that includes the names of the parents. A birth certificate that does not include parent’s names is not acceptable, particularly for the line carrier without additional supporting documentation such as a baptism record. We have seen many applicants submit “certifications” that are a clerk’s transcript of only the date, place and name(s). These are not sufficient as they generally do not include all the information we need to link the generations.
If a marriage certificate does not have the parents’ names on it, how can we be sure we are looking at the same people? If the marriage license has the parents’ names but the certificate does not, then we need both. Ohio has a great document called a Marriage Abstract that includes all that information and is our preferred document. You can order a marriage abstract from the Ohio Department of Health either directly or through www.vitalrec.com.
The Historian General’s requires that you need to provide full certificates for all events in the last 3 generations on your application,, and any other generation where such certificates can be found. If an event in the last 3 generations happened before certificates were required, we can use other proofs. When we must, we will use birth information on a death certificate as a proxy for a birth record.
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