I’ve previously written about my small role as a catalyst to the creation of online indexes of birth and death records in Oklahoma. In the last session of the Legislature Sen. David Holt and Rep. Elise Hall were successful in passing the bill for the indexes that mandated they be available by July 1, 2017. Well, the folks at the Dept. of Health beat the deadline, by a lot.

You can now search the index for births and deaths in Oklahoma online at https://ok2explore.health.ok.gov/

Entries for births that occurred more than twenty years ago are available, including those of births for which the record was created later. The earliest recorded birth is from 1865.

Entries for deaths that occurred more than five years ago are available. The earliest death record is from 1908.

Any birth that occurred more than 125 years ago or any death occurring more than fifty years ago is considered public record and anyone can order the full record. Only those who can show they are entitled to the certificate may order records of lesser age.

This will be a tremendous boon to genealogists and anyone who has an interest in verifying if a record exists for an individual. If you’ll pardon me, I believe I am going to be busy for a while….