What was going on when I was born?

The Zurich Depository Corporation, a private safe-deposit company in Manhasset, L.I., will not mark its first year of operation until November. Unlike most start-up companies, however, Zurich has begun to register marginal profits, giving Robert D. Steinfelder, the company's executive vice president and one of the six private investors who pooled the initial capital four years ago, little worry that the venture will fail. Mr. Steinfelder, whose company has no ties to any Swiss concern, is one of a growing number of entrepreneurs seeking to exploit what they see as a potentially big business: private safe-deposit centers outside of banks. The centers, which appeared first in Florida, have sprung up across the country. Indeed, there are close to 100 private vault centers in operation nationwide, mostly in major metropolitan areas and more affluent suburbs.

''The key thing that makes national law firms work is synergy; with the right combinations, one and one can make three.'' - Steven Kumble, managing partner of Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Underberg, Manley & Casey. (D1:5.)

The First National Bank of Chicago, the nation's eighth-largest bank, shocked the financial community today with the announcement that it would report a loss for the three months ended Sept. 30. The loss, the first ever reported by the big Chicago bank, was attributed to bad loans in energy and agriculture. The announcement, following recent huge losses and a $4.5 billion Federal rescue of another big Chicago bank, the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company, raised new concerns about the health of the nation's major banks. Seeking to reassure investors and depositors, Barry F. Sullivan, chairman of First Chicago, predicted that earnings would return to normal in the fourth quarter. For the third quarter, however, the First Chicago Corporation, the holding company that owns the bank, will report a loss of between $70 million and $74 million after putting $308 million into a reserve to cover possible loan losses. The bank will charge $279 million in loans that it does not expect to be repaid against that reserve.

Governor Cuomo announced today that he was establishing a task force on ''life and the law'' to recommend state policies on such issues as when terminally ill patients should be allowed to die and the legal rights of embryos formed outside the womb. Mr. Cuomo, in an appearance at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, said he had invited Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish leaders to join the group. An aide to the Governor said that the members of the group had not yet been selected, but that it was hoped they could come up with recommendations on so-called right-to-die issues in time for action by the Legislature next year. 'Beyond Abortion' Mr. Cuomo billed his appearance as a follow-up to his speech two weeks ago at the University of Notre Dame, in which he said that Catholics should seek by example rather than by law to convince others of the correctness of their moral teachings in areas such as abortion.

''I HAVE four grandchildren - my younger daughter's I can see, but my older daughter's I can't,'' said Edith S. Engel of Larchmont, N.Y. Mrs. Engel and her husband, Henry, saw their elder daughter's children several times a year when their mother was married and living in Mexico. But seven years ago their daughter had a nervous breakdown, left her family and moved to Tennessee. The couple was divorced; the husband was given custody of the children, a boy and a girl. He remarried and moved to the United States without informing the Engels of his whereabouts. When the Engels finally located their former son-in-law on Long Island, they set up a meeting to discuss seeing their grandchildren. ''He was adamant that we couldn't see them,'' Mrs. Engel said. ''I didn't want to go to court, but finally I thought, 'I'm damned if I'll let these kids think we've turned our backs on them.' We love them.''

Treasury Secetary Donald T. Regan said today that he was exploring proposals to curb the tax-free benefits that many companies allow senior management. At a breakfast meeting with reporters, Mr. Regan disclosed several other details of the study of possible changes in the tax system that the Treasury will submit to President Reagan in December. The President will then consider proposing the changes to Congress early next year if he is re-elected. Secretary Regan said the tax study group was also considering a requirement that all businesses pay the same effective tax rate, ending the present wide variations.

More than 7,000 migrating caribous drowned crossing two rivers in northern Quebec over the weekend, Quebec government officials said today. Some Eskimo leaders blamed a public utility for letting too much water spill over a dam. The utility, Hydro-Quebec, disputed the assertion that its dam, part of a giant hydroelectric project around James Bay, was responsible. A spokesman said the rivers had been swollen by rainfall that was twice the seasonal average.

With thousands of new voters registering every day, the City Board of Elections is struggling to get its records in order for Election Day. The executive director of the board, Betty Dolen, said that hundreds of employees would be working weekends and late at night and would successfully process applications from more than 400,000 new voters before the polls open Nov. 6. ''We will handle it,'' she said. ''Let them not worry.''

Vice President Bush paid the Internal Revenue Service $198,000 in back taxes and interest last June after the service ruled that he had failed to report about $500,000 in income from the sale of his house on his 1981 tax return and improperly used $29,000 in leftover campaign funds. The tax deficiency was disclosed in Little Rock, where Mr. Bush was campaigning, by Dean Burch and Robert B. Yorty, Mr. Bush's attorneys, at a news briefing. The disclosures were prompted by questions in light of the inquiry into the financial affairs of the Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee, Geraldine A. Ferraro, and the fact that only Mr. Bush of the four major national candidates had not made public such information. The attorneys said that Mr. Bush had believed he did not have to report the income and that he intended to sue the revenue service in an effort to recover the additional taxes. The ruling was a result of an automatic audit of Mr. Bush's tax returns, completed last May, that found he owed back taxes of $144,000 and interest of $54,000.

The revelations of an organized crime leader have offered investigators a detailed view of the structure of the Sicilian Mafia that points to a clear hierarchical structure, with deep roots in virtually all of Sicily. Tomasso Buscetta's revelations accord with the classic view of the Mafia as being built on a variety of crime groups that have representatives in higher councils. A ''commission,'' a kind of supreme council, according to Mr. Buscetta's description, makes all the most important decisions, with its leader having extraordinary power over the organization throughout Sicily. Like Valachi Description This description, included in documents leaked to the press here and elaborated on by officials, bears remarkable resemblance to the description of the American Cosa Nostra given by Joseph M. Valachi in Congressional testimony two decades ago. Like Mr. Valachi, Mr. Buscetta described an organization based on territorial control: Each group, or ''family,'' was supposed to run a particular area, in Palermo and elsewhere in Sicily, and to have responsibility for criminal activities in that area. His description of the Sicilian criminal organization also paralleled Mr. Valachi's in emphasizing the commission's role in settling questions of how groups were to divide labor and profits.

Orders to United States factories dipped seven-tenths of 1 percent in August, with gains in steel, communications equipment and military hardware not enough to offset widespread declines, the Government reported today. The Commerce Department said orders for manufactured goods dropped $1.4 billion, to $192.6 billion, in August. It marked the second time in the last three months that orders, considered a good indication of future factory production levels, have been lower. In July, orders rose 1.8 percent, after falling 1.6 percent in June.

T HEY spent weekends in blue jeans putting up walls, pouring cement and staining floors. In the beginning they were willing to live in primitive conditions or amid the debris of construction. And though the process took a bit longer because they were novices, the two couples who recently finished houses in the Berkshires were determined to participate in their own building. The results of their planning and labors are two houses whose prices are rare these days: Dicken and Ashley Crane and Jeff and Mia Wheelwright have built houses that cost less than $60,000. For the Wheelwrights, the house is used primarily for vacations and weekends, but the Cranes live in theirs year round. ''We planned everything as economically as possible,'' said Mr. Crane, who works in Dalton, Mass., as an independent contract logger.