US records .....

[Tom-W]

Can anyone advise how to go about obtaining US death certificates? I'm trying to confirm whether some of my family did end up there.

I think I've tracked a GGG uncle to Pennsylvania and narrowed his date of death to between 1910 and 1920. I'm pretty sure it's him as the name is very unusual but without some confirmation of his parents names I'll never know. He married in Scotland in 1847 so that's not an option for confirming his identity.

I've looked at the Pennsylvania Dept. of Health site which quoted $35 for a ten year search but you couldn't make an on-line request for genealogy requests.

Is this the only way to obtain US certificates or have I missed an easier route. Does anyone have any experience of ordering from the UK. Also will the certificate name at least his father - there's not much point in even thinking about ordering it if it doesn't!

Tom

[SarahND]

Tom,
Do you know the county of death? I assume you have found him in the 1910 census, but then he is gone in the 1920?

I usually go to the county GenWeb site and get the information on ordering death certificates there. There may also be volunteers who would look for you and make sure he's yours.

Information on a death certificate is only as good as the knowledge of the person who filled in the form. You could get lucky-- or, you could find all the lines filled in with "unknown". If, as in the case of some folks I've looked at, they made up a story about their origins and told it to their children and grandchildren-- the information on the death certificate could also be a figment of your relative's imagination...

Good luck!
Sarah

[Tom-W]

Thanks Sarah, I will investigate further

I suspect his death certificate will be a disappointment as he was living in some kind of home in both 1900 and 1910, so without any relatives to complete the details it's unlikely to solve the mystery. I'm 99% sure it is him as the month and year of his death given in the 1900 exactly match my missing uncle but I would love to have the final piece of the jigsaw!

Tom

[nanwit]

Can anyone advise how to go about obtaining US death certificates? I'm trying to confirm whether some of my family did end up there.

I think I've tracked a GGG uncle to Pennsylvania and narrowed his date of death to between 1910 and 1920. I'm pretty sure it's him as the name is very unusual but without some confirmation of his parents names I'll never know. He married in Scotland in 1847 so that's not an option for confirming his identity.

I've looked at the Pennsylvania Dept. of Health site which quoted $35 for a ten year search but you couldn't make an on-line request for genealogy requests.

Is this the only way to obtain US certificates or have I missed an easier route. Does anyone have any experience of ordering from the UK. Also will the certificate name at least his father - there's not much point in even thinking about ordering it if it doesn't!

Tom

Hello Tom
Email me with your ggguncle information full name, birth date,wife name and about what year did he come to the US also the census places you think you found him in and I'll do some work on it and see what I can find
my email is nanwit2002ATyahoo.com or witz4ATmsn.com
Nancy

E-mail edited AT = @ by Catriona

[johnnyboy]

Can anyone advise how to go about obtaining US death certificates? I'm trying to confirm whether some of my family did end up there.

I think I've tracked a GGG uncle to Pennsylvania and narrowed his date of death to between 1910 and 1920. I'm pretty sure it's him as the name is very unusual but without some confirmation of his parents names I'll never know. He married in Scotland in 1847 so that's not an option for confirming his identity.

I've looked at the Pennsylvania Dept. of Health site which quoted $35 for a ten year search but you couldn't make an on-line request for genealogy requests.

Is this the only way to obtain US certificates or have I missed an easier route. Does anyone have any experience of ordering from the UK. Also will the certificate name at least his father - there's not much point in even thinking about ordering it if it doesn't!

Tom

Tom: I grew up in Pennsylvania and know the state very well. There are other ways of finding out if and when someone died in Pennsylvania besides trying to get a death certificate.

If Nancy from New York hasn't had any luck, e-mail me your ggg uncle's name and place of residence in Pennsylvania if you know it. The individual counties have various records, at the office of the registers of wills or the office of the prothonotary, for instance, that will tell when a person died.

Since you narrowed the the time of death to between 1910 and 1920, I suspect that you found your ggg uncle in the 1910 U.S. census. Do you know if he applied for or took out U.S. citizenship? There is a column on the census form indicating whether or not a person applied for citizenship. There would be a two-letter notation in the column: AL means alien--hadn't started applying for citizenship; PA means that the Declaration of Intention (the first step) was filed; NA means that the person completed the process and was naturalized. For NA and PA, there are papers on file, either at the county courthouse (see next paragraph) or at the U.S. National Archives, which has a branch in Philadelphia with the records for Pennsylvania.

Naturalization could be done at the local level in either a federal or state court. Records from naturalizations in state court seem to remain at the county level. Records from the federal courts seem to go the National Archives.

My e-mail address is johnyear2001--AT--yahoo.com

John

[hjb]

hi , i'm having the same problem as tom. also my ggg granduncle died in pennsylvania but he died between 1900 and 1910. he was living with his daughter at the time. although age and immigration year are wayout on the 1900 census would this make his death or naturalisation certificates harder to find. need all the help i can get.
thanks hjb