Office of Vital Records and Statistics

These records support the agency's function to document, preserve, and certify the facts of births for residents of the state. These phonetic indexes are used to locate existing birth records and were developed by the Works Projects Administration in the 1930s. The Soundex are coded surname indexes based on the progression of consonants rather than the spelling of the surname in order to alleviate confusion caused by multiple spellings of the same name.

These are phonetic (Soundex) indices to birth certificates used to locate the records. The indices were compiled by the Works Projects Administration in the 1930s. Arrangement is by Soundex code number. Within an individual code number, volumes are indexed by the father's first given name. The information includes the child's name, the mother's maiden name, the child's sex and birth date, the county of birth, the file number, the cross index name, and the father's name. Indices cover three 10-year time periods: 1904-1914, 1915-1924, and 1925-1934. Within each time period are four separate volumes (A-E, F-L, M-R, S-Z).