This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/Fh.2ADI/5790 Message Board Post: A man in Calif. ordered a death certificate from "the State" (I'm not sure where) rather than our local courthouse. In our county there are two distinct families who share the same surname. (One large group (residing mostly on the west side of the county) is definitely from England. Mr. California's group has been in the southeastern corner of the county since at least the late 1850's.) His brick wall was his ancestor (William b. 1836 IL) with the 1922 death certificate. 1880 census listed William's father as born in NC. No census record has given England. When Mr. Calif. scanned the death certificate to me, I was struck by the seeming difference in ink for England, which was given as the place of birth for William's father. William's age was given as 86 but in lighter print were the numbers 85 - 9 - 12 for the age. (The place of death corresponds with the obituaries and followups in both local papers. This is the right William for Mr. Calif.) SOOO, I took the dea! th certificate to the local courthouse to see if England and the numbers had been written with different ink or what. It just didn't look right. The helpful clerk checked the copy against the original, and when she returned, she said all she could tell me was that the information on the scanned copy didn't match the original that was in the Recorder's Office. (In our courthouse, the clerks aren't allowed to provide verbal information about what is on certificates.) Mr. Calif. is planning to order a copy of the original from the Recorder's Office, at the local county level where it originated. It is possible that someone at the county level back in the 1920's assumed that the deceased was a member of the English family and added the word to the copy that was sent to Springfield. I agree that it is great to save money but in this case it would have been worth it to order the certificate from the county level. (We hope this is an exception to the norm.) The plan is to ! continue to search for a link between William and the surname family t hat was in the southeastern part of the county and possibly the two counties that adjoin that corner. Hope this will help someone else. Kathleen (STANFIELD) COOK