Nancy, I've had similar experiences to yours in discovering, to my great unhappiness, that no early death certificate was filed for my ancestress. And mine died in Thayer Co. in 1915, even later than yours. But the hard truth is that it took quite a while for local county officials to either believe in the necessity for death records or for them to convince citizens to send them the info. But you are in luck because Nebraska and Kansas have two of the finest collections of early newspapers in the entire United States. I did have a great deal more luck with a newspaper obit. The Nebraska newspapers are available for rental to your local library from the Nebraska State Historical Society through the nationwide interlibrary loan program. There is a small charge ($2.50 the last time I rented a film), payable at your local library at the time you order the paper. The film will be mailed to your library and must be read there during the several week rental period. (By the way, I'm up to three obits on my lady now, even with no death certificate.) You can contact the State Historical Society in Lincoln for a downright cheap list of all of the Nebraska newspapers available on microfilm (which also gives the dates for which they exist). This listing is done town by town, so look up Fairbury, plus any smaller farming communities close to where your family lived. These newspapers typically are available on film beginning in the 1890's. Order away! You as an individual may also purchase the reels of microfilm to have at home forever. I finally broke down and did that, although I was somewhat horrified by the cost: $35.00 per reel. I've had my best luck with the smallest, closest weekly newspapers, although the paper in Hebron, the Thayer County seat, did carry an obit. The "big city paper" in Hebron ran a tiny obit on my ancestress with no real genealogical data other than date of death, name of spouse, and cause of death, but the Hubbell newspaper carried a real spread that went several columns and provided more than enough info to identify her birth family. It gave every place she lived during her life, even as a child, and noted her survivors. I then located one of her siblings who was still alive at the time she died and followed him around in the census until he died. I ordered his death certificate, which had the necessary parent data filled in. Since I could use one of my ancestress' obits to prove her brother, and since I could prove his parents with his death certificate, then I can use his certificate as proof of her parents. (It would get more complicated if the parents had several spouses, but I lucked out on this one.) Because the area where your family and mine lived abuts the Kansas border, I also checked Kansas newspapers and got another obit down in Republic Co., KS. (We make up the boundaries in our minds . . . our ancestors didn't live that way.) But---Kansas newspapers are much harder to get. Their collection is just as good, but the papers do not interlibrary loan. These must be read in person at the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka by you or by someone you hire to search. Yuck, definitely work the Nebraska papers first. If you just can't do interlibrary loan for some reason, then there is a man who advertises in every issue of EVERTON'S GENEALOGICAL HELPER. His name is John Davis. He's inexpensive ($5 an obit the last time I used him) and quite thorough. It took him about a month to search for and photocopy the obits I requested from him. I did have the exact dates of death I needed (which I got by writing the local library, who referred me to the correct cemetery sexton). I had him search obits of family members who didn't live in Thayer Co. so that I wouldn't have to order newspapers all over the state. Another suggestion is church records, depending on the religion of the ancestor. Mine were Methodists, which was no help at all because parent info is not recorded in their records. If your family belonged to a more genealogically-aware religion, then you might have better luck. Leslie Collier