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From:
Subject: Re: City Directory Lookup Or Court Records
Date: 13 Aug 2005 18:08:05 -0600
This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/TUB.2ACI/4664.1
Message Board Post:
The reason I am not sending my suggestions to your e-mail address is that it would deprive the genealogical community of my words of wisdom and would deprive the owner of the message board the opportunity to post advertisements.
The date of death in your query omits the exact day of the month, implying that you got your information from the Social Security Death Index. I just looked at RootsWeb?s version thereof :
http://ssdi.rootsweb.com
RootsWeb affords an opportunity to post an annotation to the decedent?s entry by clicking on "Add Post-em." It can be a plea for contact, containing your permanent address. It may take decades to get a response.
The last place of residence (New York, NY) is actually the last address known to the Social Security Administration. The last place where benefits were paid = Patchogue (Suffolk County), NY---which is likely the place of death.
Death records are at the New York State Dept. of Health in Albany, NY---assuming that death did not occur in New York City. The addresses of the various vital records offices in the USA are online at :
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/howto/w2w/w2welcom.htm
Lacking recent experience in applying for a death record, I cannot comment on whether you (a nonrelative) have "standing" to be an applicant. The death certificate may contain the name of a surviving relative as "Informant." It should contain the names of the funeral home and cemetery. Both can be queried about surviving relatives---or at least who paid their bills.
A request for an obituary or death notice lookup can be posted on the message board for Suffolk County, but the board I?m on now (New York County) is proper if he lived in Manhattan. The quantity of newspapers serving New York City plus the difficulty in doing newspaper research are why queries for obit lookups are frequently ignored.
Probate research would be conducted at a surrogates court in the proper county. I have no experience with that, but wish you the best of luck.
Reg Niles
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