§ 1314 [Community Reputation of Vital Facts]

If people in a community generally know or talk about when someone was born, married, divorced, or died, that shared knowledge can be used as evidence in court. This is true even though it is based on what people have heard rather than firsthand knowledge.

Normally, hearsay (secondhand information) cannot be used in court. This rule creates an exception for community reputation about key life events. The person must have lived in that community at the time the reputation formed.

This type of evidence might come up when official records are missing or hard to find. For example, if there is no birth certificate, testimony about what the community knew about someone's birth date could still be allowed.