County Death Records

However, for those descendants who are now looking to discover more information about that same ancestor, discovering historical deaths as a result of the vital death records, funeral home records, obituaries or cemetery records can be exciting as we find the data we’ve been searching for regarding that hard to find ancestor.

Various death records can be a plentiful source of information about an ancestor’s life. Usually you can find the date, place and often, the cause of death. The records may give the ancestor’s previous address, how long they had lived in the area, their birth date and place, their occupation, and frequently the names of other relatives – both living at that time and those that had preceded them in death.

Death related records may contain the maiden name of women relatives including the ancestor’s wife or mother. You may also find information about other relatives that were buried close to your ancestor. If siblings were born and then died – between census years, the gravestones in a cemetery may be the only way you would discover their existence. Once you have that information, more searching of vital records may give a clearer picture of life events of these relatives. Tombstones also often contain references to the individual’s membership in various fraternal societies, military services, occupations and religious affiliations.

If a family member was away from home when they died, there may have been burial transit permits issued which allowed the body to be transported from one place to another. Remember to check out that possibility if you want more information.

Vital death records and obituaries are often an abundant source of historical information about the relative and their family (including maiden names and married names – for women). Often, an obituary has details about the person’s parents, siblings and children. If the ancestor was an immigrant, the town and/or country of birth may have been included as well as information about other events about the person’s life.

]]>

It’s good to remember to check out the death records of all the family members. Many times in the obituary or death records of a close relative, you can discover information about your ancestor that you otherwise would never have found.

Some additional tips about death record searches may be helpful. Here are a few. Sometimes as you follow the lives of your ancestors through successive decades of census records, they may seem to disappear. Such an occasion may help you narrow down the ancestor’s death date. Be sure to check the census records of the children too, as often an aging parent may live to an old age in the home of a child, grandchild (or even a nephew or niece). It’s also happened that rather than having died, they moved into an infirmary or a boarding house.

In the process of checking death records, after you find one type of record, be sure to use that information to locate the other types of death records that may be available and which will often give more details about the person. If you know the places your ancestor previously lived, that city or town newspaper may have obituary notices that can also give more family information.

Beginning your ancestral search with the death records is often the fastest way to get information and ideas for further research. Often these death records tell the cemetery where the person was buried and the date and place of death will give you ideas as to where to go looking for a helpful obituary. If you don’t know the ancestor’s death date, you might start with the cemetery.

The question then comes up – Which cemetery is the best place to start looking? Start in the vicinity of where they lived. Some churches and religions had their own cemeteries and death and burial records. It is usually a good idea to do an online search for possible cemetery grave indexes. One popular website that has a large number of cemetery records is findagrave.com.

It is also possible that your ancestor is buried a lot further away from where they lived or died than what you might think. As towns grew and new development took place, the dead sometimes were moved to more open areas near the outskirts of the city.

An ancestor’s body may have been moved to a different city or state for burial where other relatives lived or where there was a family burial plot. Because the movement of bodies was regulated, there may be burial permits or body transit records available. Check with the Family History Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They have many of these records microfilmed. In addition, check with the city, county and state vital records departments to discover these records.

If you will start your search for an ancestor with their death, you will often find the quickest route to discovering a lot of interesting information about their life. The link below will help you enjoy the discovery process as you build a lasting family legacy that your family can cherish for generations yet to come.

The family tree help center that is owned and maintained by Ellis will help folks when they are searching for family historical deaths from vital death records as they build their family tree. On the site there are a number of great resources and links to other sites and tools to speed up the genealogical discovery process.

www.fatbullets.blogspot.com WithGov-Resources You can Find anyone you are looking for by doing a Marriage Record Search and Divorce Record www.fatbullets.blogspot.com Search today! You too can have instant access to investigate practically anyone including friends, family members, neighbors, potential dates, and fellow employees. Plus find out what others can learn about YOU!! Gov-Resources has partnered with public offices and private establishments and have hundreds of thousands of data and pertinent information. You won’t have to do the hassle in finding the records you need. Gov-Resources can do that for you. www.fatbullets.blogspot.com
Video Rating: 0 / 5

Maine vital records are available to the general public all the way back to 1892. They make it easy to obtain a certified copy of any of their records. They do limit sensitive information such as the cause of death on a death certificate to relatives or legal representatives. Turn around times are under a week. So what is so special about this? The openness of the records. In the current climate of worries about identity theft, many states limit access to the records of living persons to their immediate family. Other states are reluctant to make any of their records accessible to the public.

In Maine you can walk into the offices in Augusta and the next day hold a certified copy of your great grandfather’s birth certificate in your hands. They do charge you for this privilege, one of the steepest fees in the country, $60 for a certified copy of a vital record. Perhaps that is their trick. They charge high fees so the criminal element isn’t inclined to use their records. As with other states some of the Maine vital records are still kept at the county clerk offices, the oldest being in Alfred in York County.

Some of the Maine vital records go back as far as 1700. Unfortunately, many old records were burnt in fires over the centuries since many buildings were built as wood frame structures. This is not unique to Maine. You will also find this problem frequently in regions that have experienced wars. Many European vital records were lost during the World Wars. Natural disasters also cause fires that destroy such records. We are quite lucky to have records dating back that far in some of Maine’s counties. The Maine Marriage Index goes back to 1743.

If you are planning a family history trip and Oregon is on your agenda, those ancestors must have been some of the first to be entered into the Oregon vital records. Oregon started keeping birth and death records in 1903. Their birth certificates are sealed for 100 years to the general public so only the first seven years of birth certificates are open to the public at the Oregon Department of Vital Records in Portland. If your ancestors have passed away, you may have more luck. Death certificates are only sealed for 50 years.

If you aren’t in a hurry you can try the Oregon State Archives in Salem. That is only about a 50 mile drive from Portland. They have some census data as well as divorce and other data from various counties. It certainly isn’t a substitute for the Oregon vital records. It will provide some clues though. Unfortunately, even the birth and death indexes have restrictive access. The State Archives have county historical data, pictures and reports so you will be able to flesh out the background information for the area your ancestors came from.

Perhaps you can imagine their life better once you have experienced the surroundings and landscape they experienced. Turning one’s family history research into personal nonfiction novels is becoming more popular. Your trip will be inspirational for that even if the Oregon vital records do not provide the details you had hoped for. The Oregon coast has some spectacular beaches and sunsets. If you know the town your ancestors lived and died in, a trip to the cemetery may provide new information. Perhaps local church records still exist recording a confirmation or marriage. Tombstones could provide a missing date if you can find one to match your family name.

Have you been meaning to research your family tree? Did you finally get started and are now wondering how to access Alabama vital records? You are in luck. Alabama started a statewide vital records data base over a decade ago. Any county health department can access it. If you cannot go there in person, you will have to contact the state’s vital records office in its capital, Montgomery. Alabama has eleven cities with populations over 100,000. The largest ancestry group is African-American.

While the state of Alabama has many records available online through the Alabama Department of Alabama History, ADAH, birth, death, marriage and divorce certificates are not among them although the death records for state convicts are slated for digitization. Alabama vital records are kept by the Alabama Department of Public Health. You can get a form to request birth certificates online. After mailing it, you can expect a copy of the birth certificate within ten days. However, you must be a member of the immediate family of the person whose birth certificate you are requesting. If your relationship is any more distant than that you will have to wait 125 years before you can obtain a copy of their birth certificate.

If you are already doing research in person in Alabama you can obtain records from the county health departments. For example in Jefferson County the records are kept in Birmingham. If you need Alabama vital records for genealogical research you are better off trying for death certificates since anyone can get a copy of those 25 years after the death of the person. Even better are marriage and divorce certificates since Alabama does not consider those to be confidential records. Anyone can get a copy but they have only been filing them since 1936 and 1950 respectively. Be aware that getting official copies of vital records costs money. You can expect to pay about $15 per certificate.

The state of Colorado maintains records online for a number of purposes.  The Colorado vital statistics are kept under the auspices of the Department of Public Health and Environment.  By accessing this website, you will be able to request numerous documents related to vital statistics.

Birth CertificatesYou can request a copy of a birth certificate issued in the State of Colorado by filling out the application available as a PDF online.  You must provide proof of who you are and justification for your search.  Those intimately related to the individual on the certificate, parents, children, etc. can get a copy, but so can those who are searching a genealogical record with proof.

Records are available from 1910 forward and can also be obtained from the County offices.  It never hurts to have a spare copy around if you need to give one to your child or use it to register for school.

Death CertificateA certificate of Death is issued when someone has passed away.  Colorado has records that date back to the year 1900.  Local offices have records that span as far as 1868.  You can request the certificate from the State or county as long as you have a legitimate reason for your request.

The state has separated the certificates into 25 year indexes and they will charge for each index searched for a certificate if you don’t know the year of death.

Marriage or DivorceTo get a Certified Verification of Marriage Record the process remains identical.  While the State holds the documents from 1900-1939 and 1975 to the present, the counties hold the intervening years from 1940-1974.

To verify the dissolution of a marriage the state holds records from 1851-1939 and picks up again in 1968.  The intervening years are again located in the counties.  For the years before 1939 you will find included the names of children born within the marriage and the date of the original marriage.  Once more, the process is the same.

Expenses Associated with Public RecordsAs you can see the process can become rather expensive if your goal is to fill out your family tree.  In that case, your best choice is not to apply to the state, find out how to get copies of Colorado vitals or any other nationwide documents in one spot.  You can find such service online, and they have records of vital statistics documents that you can print out.

While the documents you get from a service aren’t “certified”, they are accurate.  Overtime, you will save a great deal of money if you go this way instead.

Many sites like to imply that they can provide you with free vital statistics documents.  The fact is that you can only go so far with them before they want to charge you for the information they provide.  Truthfully, it is worthwhile paying for these documents, even if they aren’t certified copies.

Searching the State Vital Records FilesEach state keeps files, at either the state level or the county level of vitals statistics documents like birth and death certificates, marriage certificates, and decrees of divorce.  They are available by application to anyone who has a legitimate reason to request a certified copy.

Although these are nominally public records, the government is somewhat protective of such documentation.  To request a copy, if the document doesn’t pertain directly to you, you need to be a close family relative; parent, child, grandparent, sibling, etc.  If you are conducting a genealogical search, then you will need to show that you are in the direct line of the individual you are searching.

The Bureau of Vital Statistics ProcessIt is relatively simple to request a certified copy of a document.  Download the online application, fill it out, and make a copy of your photo ID.  Include your fee, the reason for your search and mail it in.

If you chose to fax it in instead, you will need a credit card number, and occasionally there is an additional fee for using one.  In a few weeks, the certified copy will arrive.  Of course, no government agency would ever imply they are giving you something free.

The (not so) Free Version of Vital Records

Online you can find many vendors of documents suggesting that you can get something free.  Just as in the real world, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  When you go to one of these sites, it will suggest you enter a name.  Once it verifies that the individual for whom your search has records, it will take you to a page that requires payment to continue.

I don’t like this kind of dishonesty.  If I am told that something is available free, I really resent it when I am then told I need to pay for it.  It seems very much like a bait and switch operation.

The Best Online OptionFind a site that tells you upfront that you will need to pay for your data.  After all, they paid for their access to the state databases, they pay their technicians to compile the data, and they are constantly updating the files.

If you are searching for records and don’t need a certified copy, this is clearly the way to go.  Feel free to search for all the vital statistics you want, for any document you need.  Free vital statistics data?  I don’t think so.