> > I am > > assuming he and his wife died during that 20 year period. Should I > > try to narrow the dates down further or should I write to the county > > asking for a death record based on a 20 year window? > > > > "Frank Cullison" <fcullison@yahoo.com> > > That might depend on the State. Here in Alabama, statewide > reporting of births and deaths wasn't required until 1908, if memory > serves, with full compliance taking some years. For the most part, > counties don't have records of deaths at all prior to that time, > though there may be some exceptions. So you should probably check > to find out the situation in the area of interest. > > "Steve W. Jackson" <stevewjackson@charter.net> Steve, I learned long ago never to assume that certain records aren't available. Ancestry's RedBook says this about vital records in Alabama: --- quote of scanned material ---- An act of 1881 provided for a county health officer with whom all births and deaths were to be registered. It became mandatory for every physician, midwife, or birth attendee to report to the county health officer all births, specifying the name of parents, the date of the birth, and the sex and race of the child. It also became mandatory to report all deaths specifying the name, age, sex, race, date, place, and cause of death. Later legislation required that these registrations be made within the first five days after the birth or death and required that the county health officer's registry books be deposited with the county probate judge. Unfortunately, few such records are actually found today in the county courthouses. ---- end quote I glanced at the list of counties and the starting date of death records and it appears that one our of every five or six counties has birth and death records predating 1900, most back to 1882 in accordance with the 1881 law. A great many, if not most, states did have laws of some sort requiring county official to keep birth and death records well back into the 1800s (to the 1870s usually). Unfortunately, compliance was often spotty or, as in Alabama, the books simply can't be found. But it never hurts to check! Those who don't have a RedBook or Everton's Handy Book (at least one of these is almost mandatory if you are doing a lot of research) can usually find similar information on USGenWeb sites, particularly those of the counties. Regards, Richard "Richard A. Pence" <richardpence@pipeline.com>