Newport News Birth and Death Records
1896-1912
In about 2004, the Tidewater Genealogical Society (TGS) learned that the Peninsula Health Department had been ordered to send the Newport News Birth and Death Records (1896-1912) to the state’s Vital Records Department.
Our TGS members asked to photocopy those records before they were sent, but that request was refused. Instead, permission was granted to transcribe the records before they were sent to Richmond. We were only allowed to do this during shortened operating hours and for a limited amount of time (a couple of months). Our dedicated members accomplished this herculean task and have kept these paper transcriptions at our Library in the intervening years.
We have learned that the state’s Vital Records Department does not have the original records. No one seems to know what happened to them. If not for the TGS transcriptions, no records would exist of these long-ago births and deaths in Newport News.
The transcription papers have been donated to the Virginiana Room at the Newport News Main Street Public Library and can be requested there.
Click on the listing titles for an alphabetic inventory of the transcriptions.
