Funeral Homes are private businesses. As other swrote they have no obligation to keep records. beyond Company & financial things. There are few thing to know: They currently keep great files One is the log book which enters anything that comes in & our their door (Not live visitors). They have a file of the remains they have handled which could include The records include the funeral plans and costs..[I know the color & cost of the socks put on a g-grandfather. Since SS# death certificates required them. Most request a picture of the decedent. Some keep obits and other info in their files so as to know if later burial requests for use of a family plot is a valid request. There are records of the identification #s of the casket & vaults Some funeral homes have fiched or microfilmed their older records Funeral Homes today are a corporate business and some have not kept the records of the former owners. Ask them who the former owner(s) were and if the have those records or where there can be found. Some have been extracted, compiled, published and placed with the county library and state historical society and/or archive. Most know where the cemeteries in their burial areas are located. Funeral Home personnel complete the temporary death certificate information and handle its process until it is delivered to the cemetery personnel before burial. They forward it to the State Vital Statistics Office. 1900 States began licensing Funeral Directors & Embalmers 1920 the number of funeral homes increased 1980s Funeral Homes were licensed The first funeral homes were often the local cabinet maker and or hardware. These records are most likely still in family private records or have been placed in the nearest archive, be it a university, historical society or state archives, now to be know as a manuscript collection. Manuscript collections are named for the donor, or the name of the business. A large funeral home in a city may have the most complete collection of the local business directories. Phyllis Spiker ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour