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Finding Death Records (Premium Audio Podcast Episode 210)
(PREMIUM AUDIO PODCAST) In this episode, we’re exploring the wide variety of death records available to genealogists. Don’t just limit your search to death certificates and obituaries. There are a wide range of death-related records and each has unique information to offer.
Listen to the Episode
Resources:
Show Notes
Death records are typically held by state vital records offices or county/city health departments. Early records might be found in archives, libraries, or historical societies.
To obtain a death record from a vital records office, visit their website to determine if they have an online searchable database. If not, you’ll typically find instructions for submitting an application online or by mail. Be prepared to provide the deceased’s name, date, and place of death.
Additionally, death records and indexes can be found at subscription genealogy websites as well as free sources like FamilySearch.org and the FamilySearch Library.
County Boundaries Tool
Identify the county at the time of death using the free online tool Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.
Church Records
See Substitute Records (below). Learn more about finding and using church records in the Genealogy Gems Premium video and downloadable handout How to Use Church Records for Genealogy.
FamilySearch Wiki
Find out when official death records began in a particular county at the FamilySearch Wiki. Using the map on the home page, click North America > United States > state. In the Wiki Topics on the right, under Record Types click Vital Records.
Family Tree Magazine Articles
How to Research Death Records for Genealogy
9 Kinds of Ancestor Death Records You Should Look For
Burial Records
Watch the video version of Gena Philibert Ortega’s segment on 3 Places to Look for Your Ancestors’ Burial. (Premium) Download the Show Notes cheat sheet for the video here.
Substitute Death Records
Newspapers:
Search for obituaries, death notices and related articles.
Online Newspapers Sources:
Chronicling America at the Library of Congress.
Ancestry ($)
Archives.com ($)
GenealogyBank ($)
MyHeritage.com ($)
Newspapers.com ($)
Run a Google search for states that have online newspaper collections.
Ask your library if it subscribes to ProQuest Obituaries, a service that offers millions of obituaries from newspapers dating back to 1851.
In addition, check archives, historical societies and libraries in the area where your ancestor lived for death-related records.
Learn More: Lisa recommends the following videos and downloadable show notes cheat sheets
Newspapers – Getting the Scoop on Your Ancestors (Premium)
Newspapers – 5 Top Research Tips
Newspapers at Google Books
Newspapers – Finding Family Recipes
Newspapers – Reconstructing Your Ancestor’s Life
Newspaper Navigator at the Library of Congress
Newspapers.com – Digging Deeper (Premium)
Obituaries at Newspapers.com
Church records
Your strategy for finding funeral registers or other types of church records will vary by denomination. Learn more about finding and using church records in the Genealogy Gems Premium video and downloadable handout How to Use Church Records for Genealogy.
Start by contacting the place of worship your ancestor attended. If it no longer exists, contact the parish that absorbed it or a regional office for the faith.
Search for free records at FamilySearch.org by location for “church”.
Coroner records
- Deaths occurring by accident or under suspicious circumstances may have been subject to a coroner’s investigation. Check the death certificate and related newspaper articles to see if they indicate a coroner’s inquest.
- Coroner records may be found at the county morgue, local historical society or the state archives.
- Resource: How to Read Old Coroner Records at Family Tree Magazine.
- Search FamilySearch.org for old coroner records (inquests) by location.
- Use Google to search for other online databases.
Census mortality schedules
1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880 US census mortality schedules list the names of people who died during the 12 months prior to the date the census was taken.
The 1850 Mortality schedule is searchable free on FamilySearch. You can also find mortality schedules on Ancestry.com ($).
Military Records
If you have ancestors who died in military service, you can search the Nationwide Grave Locator. This database lists burials in Veterans Administration National Cemeteries, state veterans’ cemeteries, other military and Department of Interior cemeteries, and veterans buried in private cemeteries with government grave markers furnished after 1997.
Also, search military records and pensions on Fold3, the subscription website owned by Ancestry.
Listen to the Best Websites Podcast on The American Battle Monument Commission. Established by Congress in 1923, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) is an agency of the executive branch of the federal government. ABMC is the guardian of America’s overseas commemorative cemeteries and memorials. It honors the service, achievements and sacrifice of U.S. armed forces.
Benjamin Brands, Historian for the American Battle Monuments Commission discusses:
• the Burial Search feature on the website,
• tips for successfully searching burials,
• the WWII Memorial Registry and the Korean War Veterans Memorial Honor Roll,
• and suggestions for how genealogists can fully utilize their resources.
Find Maiden Names – Episode 288 (Audio Podcast)
AUDIO PODCAST SHOW NOTES: Finding the maiden names of your ancestors can be challenging, but with the right research strategies they can be found. Author Shelley Bishop joins me in this episode to discuss 12 strategies for finding elusive maiden names of female ancestors. Then I’ll cover additional resources to help you track down the records.
Listen to the Podcast Episode
To Listen click the media player below (AUDIO ONLY):
SHOW NOTES
Download this episode’s show notes. (Premium Membership required. Join today.)
Strategy #1: Marriage Records
Marriage records are the natural place to begin. “Marriage records don’t exist for all times and all places. So, as you go back further in time, you may find that there aren’t really marriage records. But if there are, that is going to definitely be the first place you want to look.”
“Most marriage records could have been created at the local level. More recent ones can often be found at the state level. And they will usually say the woman’s maiden name. And there can be other clues if it doesn’t state it.”
Resources: Lisa recommends the following videos and downloadable cheat sheets,
- Marriage Records – 5 Steps for Finding Them
- Marriage Records Case Study with J. Mark Lowe
- Marriage Records and Gretna Green with J. Mark Lowe
Strategy #2 Family Records
“Family sources can be amazing. You might find mention of a woman in a diary or letters. Letters might expose relationships and names that you weren’t aware of, or places that you weren’t aware of.
It’s also important to talk to some family members who might know a little more or who might have some of these family materials and keepsakes that you could look at. Ask them if they’d be willing to talk with you and maybe you can copy some of their things. That’s a great way to get started.”
Resource: Lisa recommends the following videos and downloadable cheat sheets:
How to Find and Use the Family Bible (Premium)
Strategy #3 Church Records
“When there isn’t a record of a civil record of a marriage, there could still be a religious record of a marriage. Check church records. See what church records existed for that time and place and determine where they might be held. That can change over time. There’s a lot of different places.
You might look at the baptism records of children, because those will often state the mother’s maiden name. Again, these are church records. So, there’s a variety of church records that can help you.”
Church records often go a lot farther back than the civil records. “If you’re lucky, they can go quite far back. In the Pioneer days, sometimes a traveling preacher would keep his or her own records, and some of those little journals have been discovered and published. So, you can even find those!”
Resource: Lisa recommends the following videos and downloadable cheat sheets:
How to Use Church Records for Genealogy (Premium)
Strategy #4 Children’s Vital Records
“Children’s vital records can be great. We’re looking for birth records of children to see if they exist. The marriage records of children sometimes will state the mother’s maiden name, which is a real find. And the death records of a child may also state the maiden name. Those things are really worth checking out.
Be sure to look for records of all of the woman’s children, not just the one that you’re descended from. You want to look at all of the children that she had, even if they are by a different husband, because you just never know what you might find there. And if she had a child who died young, which is a sad situation, that record may give the mother’s maiden name.
You mentioned looking at all the different children. I know for me and some of my families, I find that different children, whether they were born earlier or later in the woman’s life, sometimes that surname kind of looks a little different on some of those. The reason to look at all of them is the possible variations in the spelling of the surname. Sometimes the children weren’t exactly sure how this surname was pronounced or spelled. They just knew it was sort of like something so you will get variations. When you find those, just compare them between the different records and be generous in your search and try different variations when you’re conducting searches.”
Strategy #5 Death Records
“…both the death record of the woman herself, of course, but also, death records of the children, and death records of her husband or husbands. They could provide her maiden name.
And you might find someone else who is associated with her. I can’t overstate the importance of doing whole family research, because women relied on other people in their lives. They relied on men, especially. So that could be her brothers-in-law, her husband(s), her father while he was alive, and so forth. Those death records are something you’re going to want to explore for everybody that you think she might have been associated with, or that might have been related to her.”
Strategy #6 Cemetery Sources
“…both the death record of the woman herself, of course, but also, death records of the children, and death records of her husband or husbands. They could provide her maiden name.
And you might find someone else who is associated with her. I can’t overstate the importance of doing whole family research, because women relied on other people in their lives. They relied on men, especially. So that could be her brothers-in-law, her husband(s), her father while he was alive, and so forth. Those death records are something you’re going to want to explore for everybody that you think she might have been associated with, or that might have been related to her.
Resource: Lisa recommends the following videos and downloadable cheat sheets:
Finding Ancestors’ Stories at Cemeteries
Strategy #7 Census Records
“Census records can help in a lot of ways. Especially if the woman is widowed. Later in life, she might be living with an adult son or adult daughter in the home of a son-in-law. That is a great way to find somebody. If you find a woman living in old age in with a man whose name you don’t recognize, and then some another person that could be a daughter, that’s really worth investigating.
Likewise, if the woman herself died young, her children may have been taken in by her parents or her sister or someone like that. You may find if she died at age 36, you may find her children living with her parents in another census record.”
Resources: Lisa recommends checking the FamilySearch Wiki to identify available census records, both federal and state. On the home page, click North America, and then select the state. In the Wiki Topics box on the right side of the page, look under Record Types and click Census.
Resource: Video and downloadable show notes Ultimate Guide to 1890 Census and Substitute Records.
Strategy #8 Newspapers
“Again, depending on the time period and the locality that you work in, you’ll want to look for marriages and announcements, which can vary anywhere from just a short little social note to long, elaborate marriage announcements. Those will almost always say the full name of the bride.
You can also look for Golden Anniversary announcements. If they’ve been married a long time and had a 50th anniversary, a lot of times, they’ll give a whole rundown of when and where they married and their parents. Sometimes they’ll even name their parents. And they’ll talk about people who attended the anniversary party, which could be her siblings with the maiden name.
And the other things are social notices. If they went out of town to visit relatives with the maiden name or something like that, you might find that.
And of course, there are obituaries. It may include not only of the woman and her husband, but also their children. Anyone mentioned that you think might have been related is worth looking into.
And I know you’ve done a lot of work on newspapers. Your book is a great guide to using newspapers. ”
Resource: Lisa recommends the following videos and downloadable show notes cheat sheets
Newspapers – Getting the Scoop on Your Ancestors (Premium)
Newspapers – 5 Top Research Tips
Newspapers at Google Books
Newspapers – Finding Family Recipes
Newspapers – Reconstructing Your Ancestor’s Life
Newspaper Navigator at the Library of Congress
Newspapers.com – Digging Deeper (Premium)
Obituaries at Newspapers.com
Strategy #9 Published Sources
“Those would include things like old county and town histories where they might talk about the early settlers of a region, and the first members of the early churches. A lot of times you’ll find women’s names in there. You’ll also sometimes find a biographical sketch could be of her husband, her son or her grandson, and that could be in a far distant city and state than where she lived.
Published family histories are another place to look. A lot of times they will give the maiden names of women who married into the family.
You also have online family trees, which have to be taken with a little grain of salt because they’re not always as well documented as we’d like them to be. We have to be kind of careful about just accepting what they say. But that’s true for all published resources. We also have to verify that information. You will definitely want to do additional research to either confirm or refute the information.”
Resource: Lisa recommends the following videos and downloadable cheat sheets
Getting Started with Google Books (Premium)
10 Surprising Finds at Google Books
Strategy #10 Court Records
Strategy #11 Deeds
“You can occasionally find maiden names and deeds. And sometimes if you can’t find the maiden name, at least you can find good clues there. Again, if her she had a father or widowed mother who died and left property, sometimes there’s not a will. And sometimes there’s not a probate or an estate file. In that case, you want to check the deeds, because if they own property, it might have just passed down to the children without going through the courts. And if that’s the case, then the children had to decide how to divide up the property or they had to liquidate it. And so often, some of them would sell their shares to another one. Or they might also sell their shares to a third party. So, you want to look in the deeds, and these are called Quitclaim deeds, because the person is quitting, basically giving up their claim to their fair share of the property. So, if you find a deed that has that word, Quitclaim in it, that’s a good indication that that there are other people who are invested in that property, who also have interest in it. You might be able then to find those people and find out how they’re related. And then, who owned the property that they are now dealing with.”
Strategy #12 Military Pension Records
“If your mystery woman was married to someone who served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, or the Civil War, you want to check to see if either the soldier or his widow applied for a pension after the fact. Those pension records can be a goldmine! You can learn so much from them. They’re really interesting to read!
There are indexes to those, and I talk about where to find those in the article. And you can look for them. You can order the entire file from the National Archives, or sometimes those files now have been digitized. Look through them and see what you can find. In some cases, they will lay out exactly the woman’s maiden name, when she was married, the names of her children and their ages.”
Resources
- Download this episode’s show notes. (Premium Membership required.)
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Food and Family History – Episode 287 (Audio Podcast)
AUDIO PODCAST SHOW NOTES: Food has always been at the center of family life, so if you want to know more about your family’s history, a logical and tasty place to start is with your family’s culinary heritage. The food they ate and the recipes they cooked can actually tell you a lot about them, and my guests today can help you uncover those stories.
My guests in this episode:
- Ashley Covelli is the food photographer, recipe developer, and culinary instructor behind the website Big Flavors from a Tiny Kitchen.
- Lisa Lisson is the genealogy researcher behind the Are You My Cousin? YouTube channel.
Together they produce and host Passing the Plate, a podcast that explores the intersection of family history, cultural heritage, and culinary traditions.
Listen to the Podcast Episode
To Listen click the media player below (AUDIO ONLY):
SHOW NOTES
Documenting Family Recipes
Ideas for documenting the recipes of family members:
- Go to the store together to shop for the ingredients.
- Cook side by side.
- Take detailed notes.
- Feel it, taste it, and document those details.
- Have them scoop the amount needed into an empty bowl so you can measure for exact measurements.
- Note sensory indicators. (What it should look and smell like.)
- Be very curious about everything going on!
- Record video of them cooking.
Sharing Recipes
- Update the recipes so that they can be enjoyed by modern cooks.
- Consider updating recipes to accommodate various dietary restrictions.
WRAPUP: Action Items
- Digitize and organize family recipes and recipe-related materials.
- Reach out to other family members to gather additional information and memories about family recipes and culinary traditions.
- Experiment with modernizing and adapting traditional family recipes to make them more accessible for contemporary home cooks.
- Explore opportunities to share family recipes and culinary heritage.
Passing the Plate podcast episodes recommended:
#34, 35, 36, and Lisa’s grandmother’s cornbread recipe episode.
How to connect with Lisa and Ashley:
- Big Flavors from a Tiny Kitchen blog by Ashley Covelli
- Lisa Lisson’s Are You My Cousin? Website
- Are You My Cousin? YouTube channel
Lisa Lisson
Ashley Covelli
Resources
- Recipe-related blog posts: https://lisalouisecooke.com/category/recipes/
- Find Family Recipes in Old Newspapers (video & article)
- Download the show notes for this episode which include Lisa’s Bonus Tips for finding old cookbooks online. (Premium Membership required.)
Become a Genealogy Gems Premium Member
Premium Members have exclusive access to:
- Our extensive archive of genealogy video tutorials
- The Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast
- downloadable ad-free show notes PDF cheat sheets for all videos and podcasts.
Become a member here. Learn more about Genealogy Gems Premium Membership.
Our Sponsors:
Archives
Archives makes research quick and easy with an intuitive approach to genealogy.
MyHeritage
Order your MyHeritage DNA Kit today.
Newspapers.com
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Genealogy Gems Podcast App
Don’t miss the Bonus audio for this episode. In the app, tap the gift box icon just under the media player. Get the app here.
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