Medical records are permanently sealed in MD and if an autopsy is performed in a hospital then the results become part of the medical record and no one can get that, not the spouse, children, etc., without a very good reason and a court order. Most post-mortems are performed in hospitals. If the Medical Examiner's office performs the post-mortem you might be able to get those records since they are not part of a medical record. However, I doubt if it is easy. The Medical Examiner's office performs autopsy's when there is foul play, suspicious death, sudden death in an apparently heathy indivdual. We discussed this on another list where the question was also posted and a phyisician wrote that even if you could understand all the medical terms, etc., it's just not something you really need to read. Getting the cause of death from the person performing the procedure is probably what you want to know and not all the gory details. Bottom line: in Maryland you're not getting a copy anyway - certainly not for genealogical purposes Kathi Jones-Hudson MD Tombstone Transcription Project Manager http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/maryland/maryland.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com