The State of Tenn started keeping death records in the year 1908..Before that, some cities, I think Chattanooga and Knoxville, started keeping them back in the 1880s...Death certificates are kept by the Tenn Dept. of Health for 50 years after the death of a person..After that, they are turned over to the Tenn State Archives..Right now, you can look at and get copies of death records up through 1949...But, you have to get them from the Archives, as the Tenn Dept. of Health no longer has them...The fact that the State started keeping records does have some missing areas..The law requiring the State to keep death records was originally for a 4 year period..It expired 31 DEC 1912..And was not renewed until Jan 1915..So there are no records for the years 1914 and 1914..Another thing to remember is that it was the responsibility of the Doctor to send in the death certificate...Many of them failed to do so..also, in many cases, even though required by law, if someone died from natural causes, such as old age, in the early days, a doctor may not have been called..Ol Uncle Joe was just taken out back and buried beneath the Big Oak tree...Saved paying the Doc $5.00 that way..Tennessee also passed a law in 1850 requiring that deceased be buried in a graveyard..This law was pretty much ignored probably at least past the turn of the century.. If the person who was seeking a death certificate of someone who died in 1937 will email me privately, I'll try to look it up..My local Archives here in Knoxville has microfilm up to 1942..After that, have to look in Nashville Archives... John