That is not as simple as you may think. The state has their own file and the county their own. I will try to make sense of what I know about the county ones. The early death certificates which include the 1920's and some 1930's have a reference number in the top right hand corner, which if you find a another number to the left which is 19, then the one on the right is the reference number for the county. If there is a another number to the left or you see a machine stamped number or hand written number on the document then it would be registered as a county death, not city death. (not always true, but mostly) Sometime in the 1950's (as you can tell I am not quite sure about the 1940's), Registrar's number should be the county reference number. Especially if the number on the right starts out 19...... or 70........ (19 and 70 are the Los Angeles County codes) Deborah Story Rootsweb Los Angeles Mailing List Volunteer ----- Original Message ----- From: <Cltiv8tr@aol.com> To: <CALOSANG-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 8:29 PM Subject: [CALosAngeles] Citing Death Certificate Numbers > I'm working on citing my sources and have a question about death certificate > numbers. I have two LA death certificates, one from 1929 and the other from > 1951. Where is the certificate number located on the form? > > On the 1929 certificate is a line titled "Local Registered No." and next to > that is the numbers "8973". > > The 1951 form has a line called "Registration District No." followed by a > 4-digit number and then the "Registrar's number", followed by a 3-digit > number. > > The only other possibilities exist on the official forms that each > certificate is copied onto. This is the portion of the sheet that contains > the State and County seals. In both of these cases there is a number toward > the bottom that is a "19 -" followed by 6 more digits. > > I want to make sure that I cite this properly, so I appreciate any help. > > Thank you, > Shelly > > >