Finding Documentation at a Cemetery by Christine Sievers If you are unable to find the death certificate of your ancestor, cemeteries can offer an abundance of information. Sometimes, it will include all or almost all of the facts found on a death certificate, and even more. Obtaining this information for your first dead male ancestor, will give you the skills you need when going further back in time where cemeteries are older and vital records are harder to find. More importantly, we never have too much documentation on our ancestors. Whether you have the death certificate or not, a visit to your ancestor's grave may be the only concrete object that remains to tell of his or her existence. This is sadly true for many of our women ancestors. As a genealogist, you will find that at the site of your ancestor's final resting place, he or she will become more alive to you. Then, you may be bitten by the cemetery bug and begin planning your family picnic's and trips around graveyards. Before you visit the cemetery, there is some planning to do. First, call the to find the hours that it is opened, and when a good time would be to talk to someone about the burial records. Large, modern cemeteries are busy places; so you will need to be patient and polite. Identify who you are, your relationship to the deceased, and that you are a genealogist. For the remainder of the article: http://genealogytoday.com/columns/MYtree/040831.html =========================================================== Searching for Obituaries by Christine Sievers This article continues on with your search for the death certificate of the first dead male in the line that you are researching. This sounded like an easy task, but you may have run into a stumbling block that you didn't expect. You checked out where in your relative's state the death certificate is supposed to be filed, and you sent the necessary information; but they have no record of your ancestors death. It wasn't there. You may know where your grandfather lived, where he is buried and even have the death date. What went wrong? The first place to start is, again, with your relatives. Because it is the first dead ancestor in your line, you are in luck. There is bound to be one relative who remembers a part of the story that is missing. Just where did this ancestor die? You may find out that his death occurred when he was visiting out of state. Now your search becomes a bit more complicated, because death certificates are usually filed where the death occurred. If no one remembers where he died, you are still not out of luck. Find out if anyone may have an obituary buried somewhere in their mementos. It may mention where the death occurred, or give a sold clue like "John Smith died while he was visiting his son Tom. Obituaries contain helpful resources for your family research, providing the names of siblings, children and other relatives, including the hard-to-find married names of females. Beware, they often contain errors. I found that from my own experience of providing an obituary for my mother. When printed in the newspaper, I was horrified to see some of the misspellings. And, I thought I had been very clear about the spellings. Nevertheless, they are worth finding for the clues they provide and the color they add to the life of your ancestor. For the remainder of the article: http://www.genealogytoday.com/columns/MYtree/040704.html sent to us by: Sally Rolls Pavia Sun City, AZ sallypavia2001@yahoo.com