Yesterday, I wrote about the usefulness of records created by death, touching on Death Certificates, Death Registers, Church Records, Fraternal Records, the Social Security Mortality Index, and Obituaries. Today, I will continue by listing some other records that are created at the same time.
Death and Funeral Notices – These notices are found in local newspapers and are typically short, with less information than is expected to be found in an obituary. Some of the same data may be found in the death notice as in an obituary, but expect it to be short. Several funeral notices (often with different information) may be found for a single individual. As plans for a funeral firm up, different information is often sent to the papers. One should often look in a variety of newspapers for death notices. All city daily newspapers, the county weekly, ethnic papers, and even the newspaper for the area where the individual may have lived at one time (but has since moved) should be searched.
Newspaper Feature Stories – If your ancestor died in an accident, homicide, or under other unusual circumstances, there may be a feature written in the paper. If the person was well known in the community, his or her death may have earned a feature story, even if the death was nothing more spectacular than that caused by a heart attack or stroke.
Legal Notices found in the Newspaper – Legal Notices can also give information useful to the family historian. Almost every newspaper carries them. In fact, many start-up newspapers just try to hang on and not go out of business while waiting for enough time to go by so they can carry legal notices and derive the income gained by notices which are mandated by law. In some areas, there are papers whose sole purpose is to carry legal notices for the area. I’ve seen cases where these papers covered half the state.
The Will – Every person owning any property at all should have a will. This document may have been filed with the courts and was probated upon that person’s death. The will often will list the decedent’s spouse and children, as well as other friends and relatives.
Probate packet and file – If the person died in testate (without a will), the court will often create an even larger file than if the person died with a will. Heirs will need to be located, and entire family trees can sometimes be found in the files. A large group of Texas probates have been indexed with that index available on the Internet.
Funeral Home Record – The funeral home will often have extensive records on the deceased. In the last 30 years or so, it has become customary for the funeral home to handle getting the obituary printed in the newspaper. They will also take care of getting the death certificate signed by the doctor, and let the Social Security administration know that the person is deceased. I’ve found them to be most helpful. If you can’t find a cemetery in the area, the folks at the funeral home will often know where it is. I’ve also located a lot of cemetery records at the mortuary.
Family Bible entry – In some cases, the only record of a death that you might find will be the record found on the Vital Records pages of the family Bible. This is especially true for the death of infants in the days prior to civil registration of vital records. Never stop searching for the family Bibles. You really never know which cousin might have inherited the Bible. In some cases these items have been sold at antique stores. Today you can find them listed on eBay. In seems sad that so much personal family history can so easily slip away from the family and be sold to strangers.
Coroner’s Records – These seldom-used records can often be of help to genealogists.
Soldiers’ Pension Files – Pension Files can be loaded with death information. For a widow receive a pension, death information on her husband will need to be submitted to the Pension Bureau. When a veteran or the veteran’s spouse that was receiving a pension dies, that information is recorded in the pension file.