How Can Death Records Assist You In Your Genealogy Research
Death records are an important source for information when you are trying to trace your family history. The reason these records are so helpful to genealogy research is that they are completed either at the time of death or soon thereafter by someone who was present at the time.
Death records are exceptionally useful because they would be the most recent information about your ancestors. In addition, in cases where a birth or marriage certificate is difficult to obtain, death records can be especially useful. The legitimacy of the information that you will find on death records must be taken with a grain of salt. An informant who was aquainted with them provides the information other than the place, date and time of death for the deceased individual.
An abundance of information can be found in death records that can assist you in your genealogy research. The information that you find will vary greatly by the time period you are searching as well as the location. The forms typically provide spaces for information; however, they are not consistently complete.
The information you can obtain from death records may include:
age at death
cause of death
current residence
date of death
date and place of birth
marital status
name
name of funeral home
name of informant & their relationship to the deceased
name of physician or medical examiner
name of spouse, including maiden name
names and places of birth of parents
occupation
place of burial
place of death
time of death
witnesses or officials present at time of death
It is important to keep in mind when searching death records that some information may not be correct because the informant may not have been correct in all cases.
A number of people researching their genealogy tend to skip right over death records and head straight for the information on birth and marriage. At time, the researcher already knows when and where the people they are researching died and make the mistake of assuming it is not worth their time to look for the death records. However, death records can give you much more information than just the time and place of death.
Death records, which include funeral home records, death certificates, cemetery records and obituaries, can provide you with an abundance of information on the ancestors you are researching. You may be able to learn the names of their mother, father, brothers sisters, husbands, wives and children. You can even find out where they were born and when and where they were married. Death records may also tell you if they were enlisted in the armed services or fought in any wars. You can even find out what you ancestors did for a living.
You will be able to use all of the information that you find in death records to learn more about your ancestors, providing you with more sources to find the information that you seek.