From my own personal experience on funeral homes. I know that Fentress Funeral Home in Ft. Smith AR has donated all their old death records to the Ft. Smith Genealogy Library, because that is where I found info on my ggrandfather Chesterfield Monroe Carney. Several OK funeral homes I've dealt with have told me they only keep the records handy for a reasonable amount of time, and then they too file their's away in another location. Funeral homes have provided a great amount of info for me. Not only the death certificates, but who paid for the funeral, who the pallbearers were, the cause of death, last address, whether or not social security benefits were filed for, military service, attending physician (a source for sometimes important medical records) etc. Often they have a copy of the obituary as well. All of these can give you leads on those elusive ancestors. The biggest problem is, IF they still have the records easily accessible and IF they are willing to dig them out for you. I know the one for my parents, who died within 8 months of each other and I paid for the funerals, was not willing to go back in their records the next year to provide the needed info for me. Didn't matter to them that my family had used their services for over 20 funerals, they could not be bothered and would not let me look for them. While others bend over backwards to help you. Some have records that go back a long ways, others don't. As to how long? It varies from state to state and funeral home to funeral home. Each state is different in it's laws about when death certificates started and some funeral homes didn't really keep records until forced into it. Then you have the problem of the family burial. It's not been that long since folks took care of their own. In some areas it's still allowed. The end result is: it doesn't hurt to ask a funeral home in an area where your ancestor died, you just might get what you seek and after all the worst they can say is "no". Jan who has sought out many a funeral home record in OK nancy hartman wrote: > Yes Jan I was surprised while searching records on our land to find the > death record for our neighbor filed in the books. I had to provide a record > of my dads death in order to put my name on the land he left to me. So I > expect it too is now filed in with the land records.This was in Nebraska, > Platte and Butler county. My dad kept a life estate on the land after he > signed it over to me some 12 years before he died. So I had to prove his > death before they would change the record. By the way the local funeral > home gave me a copy of his death record so the next question is do all > funeral homes have copies of a person death record? > If so when did they begin keeping a copy in their records. > ----- Original Message ----- >

We have two cemeteries out here that will not let you copy information off markers, so they aren't always too friendly to genealogists. Jeff Jan Patterson wrote: > From my own personal experience on funeral homes. I know that Fentress > Funeral Home in Ft. Smith AR has donated all their old death records to > the Ft. Smith Genealogy Library, because that is where I found info on > my ggrandfather Chesterfield Monroe Carney. > > Several OK funeral homes I've dealt with have told me they only keep the > records handy for a reasonable amount of time, and then they too file > their's away in another location. > > Funeral homes have provided a great amount of info for me. Not only the > death certificates, but who paid for the funeral, who the pallbearers > were, the cause of death, last address, whether or not social security > benefits were filed for, military service, attending physician (a source > for sometimes important medical records) etc. Often they have a copy > of the obituary as well. All of these can give you leads on those > elusive ancestors. > > The biggest problem is, IF they still have the records easily accessible > and IF they are willing to dig them out for you. I know the one for my > parents, who died within 8 months of each other and I paid for the > funerals, was not willing to go back in their records the next year to > provide the needed info for me. Didn't matter to them that my family > had used their services for over 20 funerals, they could not be bothered > and would not let me look for them. > > While others bend over backwards to help you. > > Some have records that go back a long ways, others don't. As to how > long? It varies from state to state and funeral home to funeral home. > Each state is different in it's laws about when death certificates > started and some funeral homes didn't really keep records until forced > into it. Then you have the problem of the family burial. It's not been > that long since folks took care of their own. In some areas it's still > allowed. > > The end result is: it doesn't hurt to ask a funeral home in an area > where your ancestor died, you just might get what you seek and after all > the worst they can say is "no". Jan who has sought out many a funeral > home record in OK > > > > nancy hartman wrote: >> Yes Jan I was surprised while searching records on our land to find the >> death record for our neighbor filed in the books. I had to provide a record >> of my dads death in order to put my name on the land he left to me. So I >> expect it too is now filed in with the land records.This was in Nebraska, >> Platte and Butler county. My dad kept a life estate on the land after he >> signed it over to me some 12 years before he died. So I had to prove his >> death before they would change the record. By the way the local funeral >> home gave me a copy of his death record so the next question is do all >> funeral homes have copies of a person death record? >> If so when did they begin keeping a copy in their records. >> ----- Original Message ----- >> > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >