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| Five Important Things You Can Learn from Researching Death Records |
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| Written by Chrissy S. | |
| Sunday, 29 October 2006 | |
Five Important Things You Can Learn from Researching Death RecordsWhy should you research death records? Death records are an important resource for any dedicated genealogy student. Generally, death records can be located in the county courthouse, or in newspaper archives of obituaries. They will provide details about the deceased such as his or her parents, brothers and sisters, offspring, spouses, the place and date of marriage, the birth place of the deceased, his or her occupation, possible military service, and cause of death. Why is this information helpful? Information on where a person was born, for instance, can be used to distinguish between two people who share the same name. Take one family for example, from Missouri: the Stricklands. When present day members of the family started to research its origins, they discovered that the first Strickland in Missouri came from West Virginia. When he passed away, his parents names were documented, as well as his place of birth, in Virginia. Researchers were then able to check death records of the parents in Virginia and discover that the parents were actually wed in the state of Maryland. Searching marriage records in Maryland they found the couple, and their parents' names. From there, much more information was forthcoming. Brothers and sisters were discovered. Grandparents were discovered, and on and on. The Strickland family member who ended up in Missouri, was found to be one of three brothers. When the civil war started, one brother joined the Union Army, one joined the Confederate Army, and the other brother travelled west to Missouri to avoid the war. This led to the tracking of the military records of both of the other brothers, and to the discovery of their death records, with names of their children as survivors, leading to knowledge of two completely different branches of this family and how they spread. Also by investigating the marriage records and death records of the parents, it turned up knowledge of the grandparents who had been born in England. This of course enabled genealogical researchers to go back even further to an exploration of their records in England. Frequently, researchers are trying to paint a portrait of the life of an ancestor and death records can help a great deal to achieve this goal. Death records will show how an ancestor made his living, revealing in turn if an ancestor was poor or rich, and his place in the class system of the time. It provides a picture of what his life might have been like. Since death records provide the place of birth, one can get an idea of the travels made in the life of the ancestor being researched. Also by listing the children it helps to show the geometric expansion 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 veterans of 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 well known 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 prove they descended from a veteran of the War of Independence. If a person can trace their roots back that far, there is another organization, Colonial Dames or Daughters of the American Colonists, for those who can document pre Revolutionary War ancestry. Death records play a major role in this research. When searching for death records there are two primary methods. The county court houses in most counties keep accurate records of births, marriages and deaths. These can be very reliable with the only exceptions being in some of the counties where court houses were destroyed by fire during the Civil War, or suffered from fire at another time. The other way is to check the record of obituaries for the newspaper in a particular community. Newspapers come and go, some going out of business and others starting up. However, newspapers do have a good reputation for being able to acquire the records of predecessors when they can, and usually these records are kept on microfilm. Most genealogists will find these records very revealing. |
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