Many people are aware of the value of a death certificate for settling life insurance and probate claims, but most aren’t aware that death certificates can be a critical link when building a genealogy chart.

How a Death Certificate is a Passport to a Birth Certificate

Often with older relatives, we are aware of when they passed, but not when they were born.  By acquiring the death certificate you can find that all important birth date, and that opens a world of information to you.

Finding out when someone was born means that you can then search for their birth certificate.  With that document you get names one more generation into the past.

Finding a Maiden Name

Usually you will find not only the couple’s names but also the much more elusive maiden name.  Maiden names are critical for finding maternal lines of families, after all, a family has two sides.

Social Security Death Index

The Social Security Death Index is the primary source of such documents in the United States.  This huge database is constantly being updated and has over 80 million records that date back to 1962 accurately.

Previous deaths are only listed here if they were reported after 1962 and entered into the appropriate database.  While this is unfortunate for those who wish to search older documents, it is still a good place to start for more recent documents.

Government Offices Switch to Online

Many local and state governments are transitioning their documents from files to the Internet as well.  Birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce decrees and any legal document you can imagine are quickly being transferred to the Internet.  Each day new documents are available.  By joining a document search service you avail yourself of this new resource.

Take a little time to check out the benefits afforded by a document search service.  You have instant access to databases around the country, the database will make connections that you may not be aware of, and you can do it from the comfort of your own home, at any hour.

For a reasonable annual fee you can usually search a limitless number of documents, find death certificates, and make your genealogical search more efficient and fun.

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