Bill, Mary, and List, Just because death certificates were supposed to be kept in Texas does not mean there will be one. A duputy county clerk in vital records told me not to expect to find one until after WWII. All four of my paternal great-grandparents died in Texas from 1907-1920. Not a single one of them had a death certificate on file. There is a microfilmed index of death certificates available at many libraries in Texas with a genealogical section. Also, it is available from the Heritage Quest Research Club to their members. The first division covers from 1903-1940 in a single alphabetical index. The next is from 1941-1945 in a single index. After that, the index is in alphabetical order by year. An interesting thing is that a many deaths were not recorded in the years 1908 and 1909, because of a change in the law designating their registry. Denton City has very few from these two years. When our book was compiled, we added in names from obituaries in the newspaper to fill in those years. The early death certificates vary from county to county and from book to book. Here in Denton County, each health director chose his own book. Also, towns of a certain size could serve as registrar for their city's deaths. City of Denton records are available from 1900, but the information is sparce. Therefore, when the Denton County Genealogical Society published the records, they chose to do the book in sections by book. The 1900-1917 records record birth place of father and bp of mother but not the parents' names. Please do not think I am being critical of the previous answer, but I do not want people to expect too much from Texas death certificates from the early years. Diana