I'll give it a stab. The Death Certificate documents the relationship of your grandfather to your great grandparents. You now need to find them. You might in this case want to make a timeline of the events example: 1991-grandfather died Indiana 1891-grandparents married Indiana 1877-step great grandfather remarries Indiana 1876-great grandmother dies Indiana 1874-great grandmother remarries Indiana 1872-great grandfather dies Indiana 1871- grandfathers birth Indiana 1870- great grandparents marriage certificate found Illinois In this case, you would have to search Indiana and Illinois records for the great grandparents. First place would be the 1870 census and then marriage records of the area. Take note if you do find them where they where born. If you do not find a marriage record in the area where they are located then check the records of the state they were born. I agree, English, Irish and Scots records for birth and death are better. Barbie At 01:12 PM 1/30/00 -0600, you wrote: >I enjoyed your genealogy lesson....that is why I'm trying to ask others if >they have certain proof to connect certain people I "think" may be the >parents of a definite ancestor :) > >A quick question.... > >I have an elusive gr grandfather in another part of my family line. I know >his name because other family members knew it, and the approximate area they >lived, but he died just before or just after my grandfather was born and the >boy's mother remarried. Then she died and the step father remarried. To >complicate things they moved from Indiana to Illinois; this all happened >between censuses and the surname spelling was changed in this generation. >I'm up a creek without a paddle! > >I know the date and place my grandfather was born, but there were no birth >certificates in Indiana at this time (1871). There is no family Bible, only >the names and dates as older family members recall. > >If you can give me some advice and post it to the list....I'm sure we all >could benefit. If I can't get my grandfather's birth certificate, how can I >prove his parent's names and get dates for them? I have his death >certificate and parent's names from that, but it's only names. No one knew >where they were born to fill it in properly. It's actually easier to get >birth dates in Britain because they all recorded things in parish churches >and the LDS recorded much on microfilm. Researching in the U.S. can be much >more difficult - either that or I just don't have the hang of it :) > >Any help and advice would be appreciated :) > >Lonna > >Searching for: FURLONG, MAISE, RAMSEY, BUSBY, POLAND, PENN, KENNA, MORBY, >NEALE >My Genealogy: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~lpoland >Furlongs of Pembrokeshire, Wales: http://members.xoom.com/furlongs >Lonna's House (Christian site): >http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/4299 >Lightning Web Designs: http://www.lightningwebdesigns.com > > > > > >==== BUSBY Mailing List ==== >RootsWeb Resource Cluster >http://resources.rootsweb.com/~clusters/surnames >Listowner: Barbara Peddicord mailto:nashoba@cdsnet.net