At 10:00 PM 06/09/2000 -0700, you wrote: >______________________________X-Message: #1 >Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2000 12:16:34 -0700 >From: "Carol C. Jacobs" <cc11ab@epix.net> > > >Can anyone tell me when deaths started being recorded? I am trying to >find out who the parents of two people might be. They both died in the >mid and late 1800's. How do I go about requesting these if they do >exist? Thanks for any advice on this subject. >Carol I believe Pennsylvania started keeping death certificates from 1906 on. Some individual county archives have them for a few years earlier (including Susquehanna, I think), but it only amounts to about 10 years or so. I have seen a "Mortality Index" for 1850 - 1880, but it only includes a limited amount of information, and is not totally inclusive for those years. The IGI (online) purports to have death information, but I have been able to find precious little of it. About the best source that I have found for the period that you mentioned is grave markers and tombstones. Perhaps, someone else can elaborate. Tom Walters