| Death Certificates | | | | additional tips on how to make an extensive family |
| The United States began authorizing in the early part | | | | research refer to this guide - |
| of the 20th century. - a directory of online death | | | | Cemeteries and Burial Indexes |
| indexes listed by state and county. Included are death | | | | If you don't know where someone is buried, death |
| records, death certificates indexes, death notices and | | | | certificates often list place of burial. Some cemeteries |
| registers, obituaries, probate indexes and cemetery | | | | have placed their burial indexes online, while others |
| and burial records. You can also find information here | | | | have been transcribed by volunteers. |
| about searching the Social Security Death Index Online. | | | | Probate Records and Wills |
| You can also utilize its digitized copies of death | | | | Wills and Probate Records are also vital resources for |
| certificates are available for online downloading for five | | | | tracing one's family history. They can provide |
| states. These are: Arizona (1878-1956), Kentucky | | | | information about a person's heirs, their family, spouse, |
| (1911-1953), Missouri (1910-1937 & 1945-1956 with more | | | | children, siblings, relatives and other personal |
| being added), Utah (1904-1954), and West Virginia | | | | information. Some counties now have recent probate |
| (1917-1956). For links to those and links to online death | | | | indexes online. The LDS Family History Library in Salt |
| certificate indexes for many other states (and some | | | | Lake City is a treasure box for old probate records |
| counties). | | | | and wills. You can also try the death index directory I |
| | | | gave earlier or do a Google search. Microfilms can be |
| Obituaries are vital for family research as they give | | | | ordered and viewed for a fee at local Family History |
| date and place of death and burial. Obituaries usually | | | | Centers. You might also be able to find probate |
| provides the following information: | | | | records in the courthouse where the will was probated |
| - death or burial notice | | | | or a local or state archive or other repository if the |
| - names of surviving and deceased relatives | | | | records were moved there. |
| A good source of finding copies of obituaries for your | | | | Social Security Death Index (SSDI) |
| family research can be found at local public libraries | | | | Deaths reported to the Social Security Administration |
| and more recent listings can also be found online. Be | | | | are listed in this useful index. It's available online at |
| advised that you will not always find these kinds of | | | | several websites and some of them update it each |
| newspaper listings for everyone who died. For some | | | | month. |