Family Tree Maker support for Florida researchers
Florida has a long compliance gap. Statewide registration began in 1899, but it became general only in 1917 for deaths and around 1920 for births. Many Florida ancestors therefore have no state record at all, and that is a fact about the records rather than a failure of your research. This page covers how to record that properly in Family Tree Maker.
- Service area
- Florida, remote
- Delivered by
- Screen share & phone
- Updated
- August 2026
We work remotely. We hold no office in Florida. Sessions run over screen share, so a technician sees the same screen you do wherever you sit in the state.
The compliance gap, and what fills it
Florida began statewide registration of births and deaths in 1899. Compliance was another matter. General compliance arrived in 1917 for deaths and around 1920 for births. Earlier city and county records exist but are incomplete: births from 1865 to 1917 and deaths from 1877 to 1917.
| Period | Coverage | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1865 | No systematic vital registration | Church, land, probate and census records |
| 1865 to 1917 | Incomplete city and county records | County offices; State Archives of Florida |
| 1899 onward | State registration exists, compliance partial | Office of Vital Statistics |
| 1917 or 1920 onward | General compliance | Office of Vital Statistics |
Florida state vital records are closed to the general public, and the Office of Vital Statistics sets the conditions for obtaining one. The State Archives of Florida in Tallahassee holds state and county material and is the usual starting point for genealogy.
Recording a record that does not exist
Most researchers leave a blank when a record cannot be found. A blank looks identical to work never attempted, so a year later you repeat the search. Record the absence instead.
- Create a source for the search itself — the repository, the years covered, and the result.
- Write the outcome in plain terms: which index you searched, which years, and that no matching entry appeared.
- Attach it to the person so the next person opening the tree sees that you already looked.
This habit matters more in Florida than in states with continuous coverage, because so many searches legitimately return nothing.
Keeping scanned documents attached
Patchy official records push Florida researchers toward church registers, newspapers and family papers, which arrive as scans and photographs. Media links break more often than any other part of a Family Tree Maker file.
Keep one media folder and let Family Tree Maker manage it. Files scattered across a desktop and a downloads folder break as soon as anything moves.
Keep the media folder out of cloud-sync folders. Online-only files show as broken links because the file is not actually on the disk.
Back up with media included. A backup without media restores names and dates and loses every scan.
Relink at the folder level when links break. Family Tree Maker repairs the remainder once it finds the folder.
It helps to know where that folder actually is. Your images are not inside the tree file. They sit beside
it in a folder carrying the tree's name with the word Media on the end, so a tree called Calhoun Family
keeps its scans in Calhoun Family Media. Copy the tree somewhere without that folder and every
document reports as missing, even though nothing was deleted. Treat the two as one object and most of this
problem never starts. The full routine is in
relinking missing media files.
If you rely on a cloud subscription to protect those scans, check which tier you hold. The entry-level plan copies your tree data and none of your media. A restore from it hands back every person, fact and source with all the photographs and documents missing, which for a Florida tree built on church registers and newspaper clippings is the part you cannot research again. Higher tiers do carry media. Either way, keep your own copy of that media folder.
Where Florida records actually sit
Two institutions, two different jobs, and citations go wrong when they get mixed up. The Office of Vital Statistics holds birth, death, marriage and divorce records. The State Archives of Florida, part of the Department of State's Division of Library and Information Services, holds the historically significant records of the state along with local government records, private manuscripts and photographs.
For the pre-compliance decades, the Archives side is usually where a substitute record turns up. Write the holding institution into the citation as you go, because reconstructing it later from a filename is the kind of job that costs an evening.
Be careful what "local support" turns out to be
One scam targets people searching for help in their own state. The story is that your older tree files must be converted before a newer version will read them, and someone needs remote access to your computer to do the conversion, for a fee.
There is nothing to convert. Open an older tree in a current version and the program updates the format while it loads. The publisher's support is free and does not ask for access to your machine for this. Ask anyone who offers what they will do that opening the file would not, and listen to whether the answer is specific. We apply the same test to ourselves, and we do not charge for conversion. The longer version is in spotting fake Family Tree Maker support.
What we do for Florida researchers
- Relinking large sets of broken media after a folder moved or a drive changed letter.
- Recovering trees stored in cloud-sync folders that became damaged.
- Repairing files that will not open, and restoring from backups.
- Training on media handling and source structure.
We support the software rather than the research. Record access questions go to the Office of Vital Statistics and the State Archives.
Frequently asked questions
Do you have an office in Florida?
No. We work remotely by screen share and phone with researchers across Florida. A technician sees your screen during the session.
When do Florida birth and death records start?
Statewide registration began in 1899. General compliance arrived in 1917 for deaths and around 1920 for births. Earlier city and county records are incomplete: births from 1865 to 1917 and deaths from 1877 to 1917.
Why can I not find a Florida record before 1917?
Compliance with statewide registration was partial until 1917. Many events were never registered, so no record exists to find. Church, land, probate and census records fill part of the gap.
Are Florida vital records open to the public?
State vital records are closed to the general public. The Office of Vital Statistics sets the conditions under which a record is released.
Why do my scanned documents show as broken links?
The media folder moved, or it sits in a cloud-sync folder and the files are stored online-only rather than on the disk. Relinking at folder level repairs the whole set.
Can you help me research my Florida family?
No. We support Family Tree Maker itself: file repair, syncing, media relinking and training. Record research belongs with the State Archives and professional genealogists.
Scans showing as broken links?
We relink the whole media set and stop it happening again. No fix, no fee.