Search Death Records - What You Can Find and Where

Don't Quit Too Early

Search death records to find the death date of an ancestor. It is possible if you know where to look, and what to ask. Do you know what other information you might find on such a death registration or death certificate? It might surprise you.

What Can You Learn?

Everyone of us searches for the exact death date of our ancestor. We want to find a death document with that information on it. However, you need to think broader than that or you will most likely miss other valuable information. Do you know what kinds of information you might find on your ancestors' death documents?

What you will find depends entirely on the documents you can find, the location where the documents are, and, sometimes, on how much you are willing to spend for the information.

Let's look at some of these pieces more deeply.

Where Do You Look?

If you know where your ancestor lived when he died obviously you begin with any records available for that region.

However, some of us do not know exactly where our family lived, and so we do not have a region to search for records. We have to look further, and try to find all the sources which might be available to give us clues to the information we want.

Some may be obvious to us. Others, however, may never have crossed our minds as possible treasure troves.

What are some of those sources?

Do not reject any possible sources "out-of-hand"

Whatever you do, try all of these until you find your ancestor's death date. Death date searches can be frustrating, and it can be appealing to quit before you have exhausted all your possibilities. Don't!

Pluggin' Along Can Be Hard But So Rewarding!