Dear Sally, Death certificates will be the easiest and least costly if the deaths occurred before 1957.  These would be coming from the RI State Archives and the fees are minimal...couple of dollar service fee plus per copy fee something like 50 cents - you'll need to check with Archives - since these will be photocopies pulled from the microfilms of the original records. RI Archives has on microfilm ~ Deaths from about 1856 to 1957.  Births and marriages from about 1856 to 1907.  On 1 Jan of each year, another year's records are released so 1957/1907 will increase to 1958/1908 next 1 Jan 09.  Rhode Island State Archives 337 Westminster Street Providence, Rhode Island 02903 Telephone: (401) 222-2353 Fax: (401) 222-3199 Email: reference@sec.state.ri.us Web: www.state.ri.us/archives/ ~~website is poorly designed and pretty much useless from a genealogy point of view. Open to the public Monday-Friday 8:30 am - 4:30 pm Any death or birth / marriage after those dates must be obtained from the RI Department of Health, vital Records where unfortunately, there are no such thing as genealogical copies available.  Only certified copies which are $20 each are available. RI DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, OFFICE OF VITAL RECORDS: Office of Vital Records 3 Capitol Hill Room 101 Providence, RI 02908-5097 (401) 222-2812 (8:30 am-4:30 p.m. EST) Monday-Friday to speak with a Customer Service Representative. The Office is open to the public from 8:30 A.M. until 4:00 P.M. Monday through Friday. For either, RI Archives or Vital Records, you are going to need something more specific for a date beyond simply the year in which the event occurred.  Neither place will do actual research for you.  RI Archives is especially short staffed so things might take awhile. There is a man who seems to be very active in helping folks by getting information from Archives for them.    I have seen where he has helped a variety of posters at the Ancestry.com> Rhode Island> Providence County Message Board.  He goes under the name of "gopher56".  So, if you post a request there for help obtaining copies from Archives of the death certificates/reports and any 1907 or earlier marriages/births, he might see it and take-up your request.  Anything not at Archives, you can get directly from Vital Records but it will be costly and they may or may not honor the request dependent upon how your relationship to the people whose certs your are requesting and how you are related to them.  There is also the site - Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness where you might find a volunteer to help you with the Archives records.  http://www.raogk.org/faq-requesters.htm Do not that early on, RI didn't have individual death certificates.  BMD were instead, listed in ledger type books for the municipality in which the event occurred.  Each individual was afforded one line in the book across the width of the open book (2 pages) where the information was entered.  I don't know when individual certificates started being used. The earliest RI marriage I have which, coincidentally, was for a Keegan (a pretty common Irish surname, it turns out) is 1912.  It is a separate marriage certificate rather than the ledger entry and very basic.    Deaths - 1909 the ledger book was still in use.  The next RI death I have was in 1925 and on an individual form titled "Return of a Death" which was a death certificate by another name. I took a look on line in the RI Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project for your Keegan"s and found just one of your Keegan"s in their database. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rigenweb/cemetery/cemetery198.html KEEGAN JOHN FRANCIS 1911 - 12 DEC 1988 PV003PV003 is Swan Point Cemetery described as follows:  "HISTORICAL CEMETERY #: PV003 SWAN POINT CEMETERY PROVIDENCE RI Location: 20 ft east of BLACKSTONE BLVD at TEL pole # 117   38000 burials with 18000 inscriptions from      to 1994 Owner: Swan Point Cemetery, 585 Blackstone Blvd., Providence, RI 02906 (401) 272-1314 NOTE: This transcript is from the cemeteries computerized records.                                                   Map numbers that start with 'C' are cremations done at Swan Point but may not be buried there.                This cemetery has been recorded and checked." It's possible that the cemetery might be able to tell you if John Francis' spouses are buried with him. There are several obits for your Keegan"s in the Providence Journal 1983 - present which is on line at the ProQuest site & accessible with the bar code from a RI library card. Copies of all these articles from the Projo, as the paper is called locally, can be had from Reference Services at the Providence Public Library. Photocopies from microfilm of the Providence Journal from the beginning in the 1800's to the present: (1983 - present on line at ProQuest with a RI Library card) Providence Public Library Reference Services 150 Empire Street Providence, Rhode Island 02903 Phone:401-455-8005. Main number is 401-455-8000. http://www.provlib.org/default.html Email at pplref@provlib.org The last time I checked, the costs were a $5 service fee with a charge of $0.20 per page for copies. You make your request with names and dates, they do a look-up and let you know what they found. Because they had a problem with sending the copies to people but never receiving payment, now before they will do the copy you will have to send the $5 and the cost for however many pages of copies they've said your information is contained on. (Before Belo Corp. took over the Providence Journal, there were the traditional obits on one page and there could be a larger personal bio on an adjoining page so at least 2 pages of obit information is possible.) If you order your obits, wedding announcements, etc.directly from the Providence Journal all you will get for your money is a text transcript of the information. You will miss out on any photographs that might have accompanied the obit or article and it will cost you approximately the same amount of money. Since I have found several obits and they will take up a bit of room, I'll send them directly to you at the addy you have here in the post. Linda --- On Sat, 7/26/08, sallyjaquet@peoplepc.com <sallyjaquet@peoplepc.com> wrote: From: sallyjaquet@peoplepc.com <sallyjaquet@peoplepc.com> Subject: [RI] researching Keegan To: gc-gateway@rootsweb.com, rigenweb@rootsweb.com Date: Saturday, July 26, 2008, 12:00 AM How do I go about getting marriage and death certificates from RI? do they have cheep copies or do you have to order the real thing? Names Thomas Keegan born 1888 in Ireland his wife Catherine born 1887 Ireland son John Frances Keegan born 1912 RI lived in Pawtucket son James Patrick Keegan born 1911 RI married Ann Marie Oulet then Etta lived in Cranston daughter Hannah N Keegan born 1913 RI daughter Katherine A Keegan born 1916 RI I know she never married and lived in Pawtucket above John. ------------------------------- RIGENWEB MAILING LIST LIST TOPIC: The discussion, exchange, and research of genealogy and history information pertaining to Rhode Island. 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