ScandalMcC@aol.com wrote: >Two notes of caution: > >1) The new state database of death certificates certainly is a welcome >online addition to genealogy research. HOWEVER, be sure to use the ADVANCED search >tool to hunt for licenses by surname by county. The basic search tool often >returns no results or only partial results. On one common Nixa surname, the >basic tool returned NO entries, which was impossible, even considering the >failure of attending physicians/coroners to occasionally file death >certificates. When I used the advanced tool, I got 16 entries. This problem occurred >repeatedly. > >2) I have read and been told that the death certificate of Susan Emily Sink >Edwards, the second wife of the Rev. James Wright Edwards, showed that her >mother was Lucinda Moffett, even though a Moffett was not among the three wives >recorded for her father. But the death certificate, now available online, >included the entry "don't know" under the name of her mother. Consequently, my >online manuscript of the Edwards family includes that erroneous information. >Sorry. It's small wonder that the informant for the death certificate didn't >know. Contrary to the rumor that has circulated, the informant was Jeff >Daugherty, the son-in-law of Susan's brother Stephen, who had been dead for 30 >years, or several years well before the marriage of his daughter and Daugherty. > >Take care, >Randy McConnell > > > >==== MOCHRIST Mailing List ==== >Donations and volunteers being accepted now. See http://www.rootsweb.com/~mochrist/ for more details > >============================== >New! Family Tree Maker 2005. Build your tree and search for your ancestors at the same time. Share your tree with family and friends. Learn more: http://landing.ancestry.com/familytreemaker/2005/tour.aspx?sourceid=14599&targetid=5429 > > > > > I was doing some searches the opposite way, a basic search but with only the year and the county. For 1910 - 1920, Christian County averaged about 120 death certificates a year, with about 5-9 of those being duplicates or corrections of another certificate for the same death. If I hadn't done it that way, it's likely I would not have found the certificate for a cousin, Luther Thomas "Phillipps" who contracted tuberculosis on the battlefield in World War I, but didn't die until he made it back to the United States and thus wasn't listed as a casuality of war. A search will bring up only exact spellings, even if you don't know how the name might have been spelled in the record. I noticed that Luther's father, John David Phillips did have a death certificate when he died in 1926, although a search of that exact name and death date twenty years ago found no certificate. John's brother, William Lincoln Phillips, who died in 1915 still had no matching certificate, nor does his niece, Georgia Elkins who died in 1918 - both of whom I had checked unsuccessfully for years ago. And, as many have seen in death certificates, there are indications of how upset and not thinking clearly informants often are after a family member's death. For instance, after the accidental death of 17 year old Lyman Garrison, his father - the informant - lists "unknown" as where he himself (the father) was born as well as for the name of his wife, the boy's mother.