California Birth Index

The California Birth Index (CABI) is a database compiled by the California Office of Health Information and Research. The index contains s of all registered births in between 1905 and 1995. Each record is an abstract of a person's birth certificate, including date of birth, full name, county of birth, gender, and mother's. People who have been are sometimes listed by their birth name, sometimes listed by their adopted name and sometimes not listed at all. The CABI is considered a valuable tool but is also criticised for  issues.

Controversy
Critics of the index have claimed that the index's information aides in. Several public record websites have purchased copies of the index from the California Department of Health Services, typically priced at US$900. In 2001, the San Jose Mercury News printed a story about the index, then accessible on genealogical website, causing numerous complaints and requests for removal from the index, and ultimately leading to the index being removed from the site.

The California Birth Index, along with the, used to be available for free from. When Rootsweb was purchased by, the index remained available for a time, but then was pulled by Ancestry due to complaints about privacy concerns. The index was then only available through VitalSearch and later through Family Tree Legends. Ancestry has restored the index to their content, but has not restored the thousands of notes by users posted in the index when it was running as part of.