The original certificates of marriages, births, and deaths filed with the Register of Deeds prior to 1908 are catalogued as BROWN SERIES 50, 51, and 52. The recorded copies of these certificates remain in the custody of the Brown County Register of Deeds. The Register of Deeds also maintains a complete index for these records. There are large gaps in the holdings of original birth certificates prior to about 1885 and in the original death certificates prior to about 1875. For earlier years the information is handwritten and often incomplete.
Indexes to recorded marriage, birth, and death records are catalogued as BROWN SERIES 47, 48, and 49. These indexes also serve as finding aids to the original certificates since the latter are arranged by the volume and page number assigned to the recorded copy. This order probably reflects the sequence in which the Register of Deeds received the documents for recording. This order does not necessarily reflect the date of the marriage, birth, or death because many were recorded long after their occurrence. These indexes apparently were used to compile the indexes in current use in the office of the Register of Deeds.
