Stetson Law -- Vital Records

The following sites are excellent resources for finding vital record information:

Vital Records Information -- United States (detailed listing of links to the Vital Records sites of the states and territories, along with lists of free, searchable databases)
VitalChek (Lists state and some county records sites, along with their addresses; not as comprehensive as Vital Records Information, above)

Vital records -- things such as birth, death, and marriage records -- when they can be located on the web, are still mostly available for a fee. There are a few that give actual records without requiring some pay. (For example, the commercial service KnowX provides searching of military, birth, and death records, along with asset locators -- for a fee)

Among the best sources for older vital records are the Genealogy web sites; among the best of these is Ancestry.com, which contains a goldmine of information about finding old birth, death and military records, both from the United States and some other countries. In addition, it contains a link to the Social Security Death Index, a handy and easy-to-use site for finding personal information about deceased persons.