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From: Glory Bee <>
Subject: again thanks to Sally
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 18:19:10 -0700


Finding Documentation at a Cemetery
by Christine Sievers

If you are unable to find the death certificate of your ancestor,
cemeteries
can offer an abundance of information. Sometimes, it will include
all or
almost all of the facts found on a death certificate, and even more.

Obtaining this information for your first dead male ancestor, will
give you
the skills you need when going further back in time where cemeteries
are
older and vital records are harder to find. More importantly, we
never have
too much documentation on our ancestors.

Whether you have the death certificate or not, a visit to your
ancestor's
grave may be the only concrete object that remains to tell of his or
her
existence. This is sadly true for many of our women ancestors. As a
genealogist, you will find that at the site of your ancestor's final
resting
place, he or she will become more alive to you. Then, you may be
bitten by
the cemetery bug and begin planning your family picnic's and trips
around
graveyards.

Before you visit the cemetery, there is some planning to do. First,
call the
to find the hours that it is opened, and when a good time would be
to talk
to someone about the burial records. Large, modern cemeteries are
busy
places; so you will need to be patient and polite. Identify who you
are,
your relationship to the deceased, and that you are a genealogist.

For the remainder of the article:
http://genealogytoday.com/columns/MYtree/040831.html


===========================================================

Searching for Obituaries
by Christine Sievers

This article continues on with your search for the death certificate
of the
first dead male in the line that you are researching. This sounded
like an
easy task, but you may have run into a stumbling block that you
didn't
expect. You checked out where in your relative's state the death
certificate
is supposed to be filed, and you sent the necessary information; but
they
have no record of your ancestors death. It wasn't there.

You may know where your grandfather lived, where he is buried and
even have
the death date. What went wrong? The first place to start is, again,
with
your relatives. Because it is the first dead ancestor in your line,
you are
in luck. There is bound to be one relative who remembers a part of
the story
that is missing. Just where did this ancestor die? You may find out
that his
death occurred when he was visiting out of state.

Now your search becomes a bit more complicated, because death
certificates
are usually filed where the death occurred. If no one remembers
where he
died, you are still not out of luck. Find out if anyone may have an
obituary
buried somewhere in their mementos. It may mention where the death
occurred,
or give a sold clue like "John Smith died while he was visiting his
son Tom.


Obituaries contain helpful resources for your family research,
providing the
names of siblings, children and other relatives, including the
hard-to-find
married names of females. Beware, they often contain errors. I found
that
from my own experience of providing an obituary for my mother. When
printed
in the newspaper, I was horrified to see some of the misspellings.
And, I
thought I had been very clear about the spellings. Nevertheless,
they are
worth finding for the clues they provide and the color they add to
the life
of your ancestor.

For the remainder of the article:
http://www.genealogytoday.com/columns/MYtree/040704.html
sent to us by: Sally Rolls Pavia
Sun City, AZ


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