Training for County Vital Records Professionals

The Minnesota Department of Health offers training for county vital records staff to learn how to respond to customer requests, issue documents in Minnesota Registration and Certification (MR&C), and more. 

Office hours

Office hours provide local vital records professionals an opportunity to learn more about a featured topic, ask questions, and share information. Each session includes topic presentations, resources, and discussion. Every session reserves time for open forum. New and experienced staff are invited to participate. Send ideas for Office Hours topics to health.vitalrecords@state.mn.us.

January office hours: User agreement roles and new-hire training tools

Thursday, January 22, 9:00 - 10:00 a.m.

Join us for an informative hour focused on understanding roles assigned to MR&C users, including some changes to the issuance role. We'll also review training tools for counties who are onboarding new vital records staff.

• Join via Microsoft Teams — Click to register. Pre-registration is not necessary but will trigger reminder emails and provide an appointment to save to your calendar. You will need to click "register" to sign into the meeting.

Upcoming office hours dates (topics to be announced)

• Wednesday, April 22
• Thursday, August 6
• Thursday, October 29

Recorded office hours

Acceptable ID (YouTube) October 20, 2021

Adoptions and Other Replaced Records (YouTube) June 22, 2022

Death Record Amendments (YouTube) February 16, 2022

Eligibility/Tangible Interest (YouTube) January 19, 2022

Helping Customers with Amendments (YouTube) November, 17 2022

Issuing Historical Records (YouTube) October 25, 2024

Issuing Specialty Certificates (YouTube) January 18, 2023

MACO Pre-Session Training - Recap (YouTube) March 2023

New Adoptee Access Law (YouTube) June 2024

Non-Family Eligible Relationships (YouTube) June 2023

Parental Notices (YouTube) November 17, 2021

Partner Processes (YouTube) October 19, 2022

Paternity (YouTube) May 18, 2022

Security Paper Management and Reconciliation (YouTube) April 20, 2022

Using MR&C Reports for Security and Performance Management (YouTube) March 19, 2025

Training for new staff

Four recorded learning sessions help local issuance staff get started in their important role with basic information about vital records, MR&C, and issuing birth and death certificates. Each session shows resources available for the learner and links to recorded “Office Hours” training sessions which cover the specific relevant topics in greater detail.

Part 1 – Welcome to Vital Records – Introduces Minnesota statutes and administrative rules that govern vital records, the Office of Vital Records (OVR), security concerns, certificate eligibility, and public/confidential record types.

Part 2 – Operations – Highlights daily tasks and processes and explains the difference between record corrections and amendments and different certificates and documents.

Part 3 – Demonstration (1) in the Minnesota Registration and Certification (MR&C) System 

Part 4 – Demonstration (2) in the Minnesota Registration and Certification (MR&C) System – In the two-part demonstration, you'll observe searching for records, creating customer service requests, and issuing certificates. You'll also see some of the resources available to county vital record office staff members.

Part 5 – Self-directed exploration in the MR&CTRAIN system – Special access to the vital records database training system, an exact duplicate of MR&C System, to allow vital records professionals to practice using fictitious data and records. New staff wishing to try-out the system must complete a County Vital Records Office User Agreement (PDF) (please write “MR&CTRAIN” at the top of the form) to gain temporary access.

Test your knowledge

Use our Training checklist and quiz for new county vital records employees (PDF) to ensure you've done the recommended initial trainings and understand key vital records principles.

Track your training

Please take our training tracker survey any time you’ve completed a training session. It helps us gauge the reach of our classes and inform counties which of their staff have been trained.  

Please provide feedback: Office of Vital Records Customer Satisfaction Survey