Five Important Things You Can Learn From Researching Death Records
December 1st, 2008

Why should you research death records? Death records are an important source of information for any serious genealogy student. Commonly death records can be found in the county courthouse, or in newspaper archives of obituaries. They will include information on the deceased such as parents, siblings, children, spouse, when and where married, where the deceased was born, the occupation of the deceased, possible military service, and cause of death.

Why is this information helpful? Finding out where a person was born, for instance, can help distinguish between two people who may have the same name. Take one family for example, in Missouri, the Stricklands. When modern day members of the family tried to research its origins they found that the first Strickland in Missouri came from West Virginia. When he died his parents names were listed, as well as his place of birth, in Virginia. Researchers were then able to check death records of the parents in Virginia and discover where the parents were married, in the state of Maryland. Searching marriage records in Maryland they found the couple, and their parents' names. Going from there the web evolved. Siblings were discovered. Grandparents were discovered, and on and on. The Strickland family member who went to Missouri, it was discovered, was one of three brothers. At the beginning of the Civil War one brother joined the Union Army, one joined the Confederate Army, and one brother went west to Missouri to escape the war. This allowed tracking of the military records of both of the other brothers, and led to discovery of their death records, with names of their children as survivors, going on to show two entirely different branches of this family and how they spread. Also by going back to the marriage records and death records of the parents, it led to the grandparents who emigrated from England. This of course allows genealogical researchers to go to records in England and go back even further.

Many times researchers are trying to paint a portrait of the life of an ancestor and death records can help tremendously in this endeavor. Death records will tell the occupation of an ancestor, and that will help to determine if an ancestor was poor or rich, middle class or well to do. It gives a good idea as to what his life was like. Since death records show where an ancestor was born, it helps to draw a picture of the journeys made in the life of the ancestor being researched. Also by listing the children it helps to show the geometric growth of a family.

Military service is shown on death records and a practical benefit of that for many people is qualification to join one of several organizations dedicated to certain conflicts. Sons of Union Veterans and Daughters of Confederate Veterans for instance are there for descendants of people who fought on either side during the Civil War. The most famous of these groups are probably the DAR and SAR, or Daughters of the American Revolution and Sons of the American Revolution. In order to join one of these organizations a person must be able to document descent from a veteran of the War of Independence. If a person can go back that far in their documentation, there is another organization, Colonial Dames or Daughters of the American Colonists, for those who can document pre Revolutionary War ancestry. Death records play an important part in this research.

When looking for death records there are two primary methods. The county court houses in most counties keep detailed records of births, marriages and deaths. These can be very reliable with the only exception being some of the counties where court houses were burned during the Civil War, or suffered from fire at another time. The other method is the record of obituaries for the newspaper serving a particular area. Newspapers come and go, some going out of business and others starting up. However, newspapers do have a good track record of acquiring the records of predecessors when they can, and they usually keep these records on microfilm. Most genealogists will find these records very helpful

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