How can I find out if someone has a birth certificate before I send money?

Question:My husbands father was either born in MO or IL, but not sure. How do I find out if its on file somewhere, before I send money with a request?He was born in 1925.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My husbands father was either born in MO or IL, but not sure. How do I find out if its on file somewhere, before I send money with a request?He was born in 1925.

If you don't have Ancestry.com, go to your local library, they probably have it. Type in the surname and read all the 'Hits" for your husbands father's name on the census records for 1930. There may be several so you may have to look at several pages of documents. This may take as long as an hour. It helps if your father-in-law had brothers and sisters, and if you know where they were living in 1930. If you cannot get to th library go to

Italiangenealogy.com (doesn't matter if youare italian or not) join the site ( its free) go into the community forums and post a request. These people are very friendly and helpful. Some of them can find the census record of 1930 for you and will post a .jpeg image of it for you to see. The reason this 1930 census record is important is on the page will be written the state where your father-in-law was born, his siblings, parents etc..
good luck

Call their court house

Why don't you ask the dad, if your asking for a birth certificate he must be alive. You call the city halls in those states and see if they have a record of him..but his son probably will have to do it since he is blood relative.

Call around and check with they court house

Search on line. Go to your search engine ,type in the name of the state ,hit enter. Find that states public data cite and search the records with his name and birth date.