Why I love Death Certificates - A Morbid Fascination

Let's face it.  Genealogy is basically all about chasing down dead people's secrets. Whether they intended for them to be secrets is another thing altogether.  Death certificates for me, are like Christmas in the secrets department.  You can learn a lot by the remarks found there.  

Example:

This Kentucky death certificate from 1918 shows a whole lot of information about the person in question (A far back relation of mine).  It lists out where the person lived at the time of death, their birth date, marital status, employment, and, *drum role please*, names and birth places of parents! 

In addition to all this wonderful information, you also get a burial place and cause of death, plus an informant name. 

Like all records, you may need to validate the information found. Always record those corrections with the record you keep.  Print a copy! 

 

Some of you may think, well how come I can't just use a census record for this? The answer is, census records don't contain all this information.  This is especially true in the 1800's census, where there may only be information as to state of birth, and birthplace of parents.  

The trouble with death certificates, especially in rural areas, is that there isn't always one to be found.  Unlike the census, which did a pretty good job of at least collecting a name, date, and area, death certificates weren't mandatory until the late 1800's in many places.  Even after, many people simply died at home and were buried there with only a notice in the church paper or a notation in the family bible.  

Some death certificates I have found don't have complete information, and, it would be unreasonable to expect to find it complete 100% of the time. One of my (presumed) ancestors died in a tuberculosis infirmary and the only thing they knew was an approximate age and place of birth.  There was no record of her burial. This is not an uncommon situation.  Some old folks died in state homes, where there was not a lot of interest in recording the details. 

Finding death certificates in Ancestry.com is fairly easy! The index for the states that has released them grows every day.  You can locate the search for your state records by choosing the search button... located here -

Click on the Birth, Marriage and Death section, choose your state and enter your ancestors information.  

My advice is to be very general and be willing to spend some time looking through the results.  For instance, if you were searching for Thomas Rice, use the broad search, not exact, unless you come up with hundreds of results,  narrow it down slowly.  Ancestry seems to index ALL the names on a death certificate, so you might find Thomas, but it might be a certificate for a relative that he was mentioned in or signed off on.  Don't forget to record the information of burial.  

You can also request death certificates from individual state and county vital record departments.  You must be very specific when doing so and it usually costs a small fee. 

There are other secrets to death certificates I am just now learning.  Keep coming back.  I want to share!