Question

Where does one go to collect actual birth records, hopefully for free ?

Answer 1

IN the United States:

If you want the real original birth records, they are usually lodged in the place (town) the person was born.  In some places they may be found on the county level, and original older records are sometimes housed at state archives.

Then there are indexes, scans of original documents, and collections of Vital records for various places. You can't find them all in one place. Look at Family Search (free). Ancestry has many of these. Massachusetts and Connecticut have books of early vital records by town. Try googling birth records for the place you want. Family Search has lovely pages that tell where you can find things. example https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/New_London_County,_Connecticut_Genealogy For instance try googling something like "birth records town name family search"

Comments

Another note, Places didn't always keep records, especially early in the settlement, so you may never find a birth record.

Answer 2

It really depends on what country you are interested in.

FamilySearch is probably the best general site, with a huge amount of records from all over the world. although some of their sources have restrictions such that you can only access them at a Family Hustory a Center, but they would still be free.

In the UK, there are sites like the Online Parish Clerks.

A few US states have free access to vital records.

The French Archives are free, and have both civil and church records.

For Dutch records: Wie Was Wie.

For Austria records, Matricula, which also includes some German and other records.

The Czech Regional Archives.

Many US public libraries have subscriptions to sites such as Ancestry that you can access for free through the library websites. A library card is required; some libraries have free remote access.

FamilySearch has free access to a number off subscription sites, Ancestry among others, but these must be used at a FHC, although church members have access to some.

There is generally no free access to modern records.

Answer 3

Free research sites, I would recommend https://familysearch.org 

Answer 4

All great ideas.

It's nowhere near as comprehensive, but often if you just google the name of the person for whom you are looking and/or the location in which that person lived, you'll turn up pockets of transcribed records.

Also, if you'll post what you are looking for, there are lots of people with access to the paysites that will be glad to look for you.

Comments

Adding a term such as “genealogy” or “family tree” to the name can help focus the search.

Answer 5

Wayne, I see you have some British Columbia ancestors, so you may find some BMD documents in the British Columbia Archives that can be downloaded at no cost.