Last column, I focused on death certificates, obituaries and Social Security application records. But death leaves many other records behind. And just to be clear, I’m addressing US records (with one exception at the end). Eastern European records will be addressed in other columns.

When a death occurs, there is usually a chronological order to events: if the death was notable (i.e. the person was well known, death was unusual, such as suicide or murder), there might have been news coverage, and you might find a news article in the local paper at the time.

Again, if the death was unusual, a corner’s report might have been filed, and it’s worth inquiring about that.  

A death certificate is issued, which often lists what, if any funeral home, was used. That funeral home may have information not found elsewhere. For example, an ancestor of mine who immigrated from Warsaw to the US left very little behind because he was a virtual pauper, with no family. But funeral home records yielded his parents names, something I wasn’t able to find elsewhere.

As we have been told all our lives, death and taxes are inevitable, and fortunately for family historians, both result in a number of records being generated.

Documents about deaths are probably the second most commonly sought after records, after census records, because we often don’t know when or where our ancestors were born, especially if we can’t find them in the census.

In a previous column where I discussed vital records, the most obvious death record is the death certificate. The ease or difficulty of obtaining that certificate will depend on how long ago your ancestor died (due to privacy restrictions, they may not be released at all), and knowing where s/he died in. As mentioned before, contact the county,or state archives of the appropriate state.