We’re spoiled in California. We have a public birth index that lists records into the 1990’s. I also have a supplemental index that goes to 2009 and a microfiche index that has names of adoptees (and their birth name) and adoptive and birth parents. But Hawaii does not have a public index and birth certificates are not a public record. (If you were adopted you can get your original birth certificate. Act 80 “Allows adopted individuals who have attained eighteen years of age, adoptive parents, and natural parents unfettered access to the adopted individual’s sealed adoption records.”)

The way around the birth record restriction is to research births published in the newspapers. You have to know an approximate date of birth and then you can scan the microfilm around that date. Births to parents who checked the box on their child’s birth certificate authorizing public dissemination were published. [Thanks to Joe at Goodenow Associates Investigations]