Death certificate for Eddie Schneider. Source: Wikimedia Commons
I've lost a lot of important people in my life and sometimes liken myself to Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood in that I've “seen death.” I imagine myself being able to see the thestrals as I take my carriage ride up to Hogwarts. Many people avoid talking about death, wishing to avoid "negative" emotions or being taken as morbid, but conversations about death is something that I simply cannot avoid. Loss is a huge part of who I am (if you haven't followed my story, I lost my mother when I was 23—she was 46—and my three surviving grandparents all passed away in the two years following). That doesn't mean that death doesn't sometimes scare me, but I am not afraid to talk about it.
Most of the people you'll be targeting in your ancestry research will be dead. That means that there's a good chance there will be some sort of death record for that individual (they were also born, so be sure to check out my post on birth records).
Death records include important genealogical information, such as an individual's name, birthdate, birthplace, parentage, and spouse's or next-of-kin's name. You may also find useful tidbits including occupation, address at the time of death, cause of death, etc. Death records are also useful in that they can help you obtain a birth record if the person you're researching has died relatively recently. For instance, after my grandmother passed, I requested her birth certificate from New York City, but because her death was recent and N.Y. has relatively strict privacy laws, they required a death certificate before they would issue me the birth record.
The Pitfalls of Death Records
Death records can be extremely useful documents, but please be aware that they are more likely to contain errors than other vital records. While birth records and marriage records are completed by the individuals themselves or their parents, death records are typically filled out by a spouse, child, or in-law who may not know as much about the deceased person as they think they do. For instance, it's easy for children to mix up their parents' birthdates, birthplaces, or the full names of their grandparents.
Because of these little mistakes, I highly recommend that a death record is used as a supporting document and not the main record for justifying your information on an individual. As a home historian, you should always be attempting to gather as many resources as possible when in comes to proving something about a relative, but if few documents are available, I urge you to at least find a birth or marriage record to back up what you find on a death certificate.
Requesting Death Certificates
Death certificates are relatively easy to get, but localities will have different restrictions on who is able to access the documents. As I mentioned before, with states like New York it can be tougher to successfully obtain vital records. Other states are more lenient.
Typically, you can Google the state name along with “Death Certificate” to find the webpage for requesting a death record through the Department of Health. Similar to marriage and birth records, you are usually asked to provide as much information about the individual as you can offer (full name, birth date, death date, etc.), why you are requesting the certificate, and an application fee of $5-25. Like all things involving government bureaucracy, it may take a few weeks or even months for you to receive the certificate—if they are able to locate it.
Graveyard scene. Source: Pexels
Other Death Records
While I consider death certificates to be part of the “holy trinity” of documents (birth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate) you should be requesting for each ancestor, there are other records you can access related to an individual’s death that may be helpful in your genealogy research.
Gravestones, for instance, can provide simple information about a relative—when they were born and died, the region where they may have lived—and they can often be a great way to track down members of their family, since spouses, parents, siblings, and children are often buried nearby. Visiting a family burial plot or checking out Find-a-Grave is a good place to start.
You can also look into a family members last will and testament if they have one. This can provide information about the economic circumstances of the family member and reveal the names of close loved ones, who are often mentioned in the will. The Home Historian will publish posts on gravestones and wills as part of our Genealogy 101 series in the future.
What is the strangest or most fascinating piece of information you’ve ever gotten off of a death record? Let us know in comments!!