Can any of you Americans think of any reason why a 1977 death would not be recorded where it occurred? A personal, on-site, search of the relevant state's death records turned up absolutely no entry for the surname, let alone the exact name, plus or minus a month of the known date. Mr X gave me his father's birth and death info when Mr. X's grandson was born back in 1985. The family threw in other details, such as where he lived, and how-come he died in the same hospital where the baby had been born. Various official records support this verbal information, including an SSDI entry for the right name, born the right date, residing in the right place, last benefit going to the right place, and the SSN issued in the right place. The state has no record of such a death. I wouldn't have thought a hospital wouldn't have filled out the paperwork back in 1977, and I wouldn't have thought one state would permit a body to moved into another state for burial without appropriate wads of paper. Any ideas? Other than to dig deeper into the obits and death notices for the right week? Cheryl

singhals wrote: > Can any of you Americans think of any reason why a 1977 death would not > be recorded where it occurred? > Mr X gave me his father's birth and death info when Mr. X's grandson was > born back in 1985. The family threw in other details, such as where he > lived, and how-come he died in the same hospital where the baby had been > born. Various official records support this verbal information, > including an SSDI entry for the right name, born the right date, > residing in the right place, last benefit going to the right place, and > the SSN issued in the right place. The state has no record of such a > death. Cheryl: Because it didn't occur where you think/told it occurred! SSDI is no help--that is only the money trail. Money goes to one place and grandma/dad lives and dies across country. Hundreds of thousands of those listed in SSDI fall in that category. Had a case where the obit listed a death at home and I spent days searching state records for that year and alternate spellings and couldn't find it. Months later someone gave me a copy of the death cert--another state! She had TB and died in a sanatorium. Here I was telling state employees they couldn't spell or file! <VBG> I would track the obit, or better yet, call the cemetery and ask them which funeral parlor handled the arrangements. Funeral parlor would have copy of death certificate. Obit should be in online papers or reference section of local library. Amazing how many local libraries have put their obit indexes online--tucked away on their websites. Good hunting--snag me offline if you want help. ecunningham@att.net