Douglas County, Missouri

Death Records

MO Gen Web, Kristi Towe and Sharon Sanders, Coordinators
 
 

Death Certificates -- 1910-1956

TIP -- Name spellings will vary.  In the search fields, (1) try different spellings for the name, or (2) leave the name blank and enter only the county and date of death.

Obituaries

TIP -- The cities of Mansfield and Mountain Grove are located just north of the Douglas-Wright county line.  Their newspapers contain much information about northern Douglas County families.  Likewise, the newspaper for Ozark County will often provide information about southern Douglas County families.  The West Plains Quill could contain information about eastern Douglas County families.  The Springfield News-Leader is the major daily newspaper in southwest and south-central Missouri.

Death Notices

  • BOOK -- The Douglas Co. Hist. & Gen. Soc. has maintained an annual book of obituaries from 1997 to 2002. 

  • MICROFILM -- The Douglas County Herald is microfilmed back to 1887 although published obituaries were rare before 1900.  Microfilm is available on interlibrary loan from the Missouri State Historical Society in Columbia.  Also, microfilm through 1942 is available at the Douglas County Library in Ava.

  • BOOK -- Death Notices from the Douglas County Herald. Abstracted from the newspaper, 1887-1910.  Compiled by Laine Sutherland.  Indexed, 318 pages, Glossary of Diseases.  {This work is currently out of print}.

Research Aids

  • The Douglas County Herald weekly newspaper archives are available for research into death notices and obituaries.  Contact Pat Carmichael, Society Research Chairman, visit the Douglas County Library, or obtain microfilm from the Missouri State Historical Society in Columbia via interlibrary loan.
Copyrights and Good Ethics -- This site is copyrighted to protect the many creators of the body of work contained here.  Use this information freely but tell your readers where you acquired the information.  A copyright comes into existence when a work is created. Only “original works of authorship” can be protected by copyright.  An example of this would be cemetery records – if you copy names and dates from a cemetery, that in itself might not be copyrightable, unless you have added information to it, such as compiling multiple cemeteries into one source, such as Laine Sutherland’s (et al) Gone But Not Forgotten: Cemetery Survey of the Eastern District, Douglas County , Missouri (1995).  My own transcriptions of Fairview and Oak Forest Cemetery are also copyrighted, because I added additional information not available on the headstones. For works created after 1978, copyright protection lasts for the “life of the author, plus seventy years”. For works created before 1978, the protection is good for a maximum of 95 years, with a minimum of 28 years. Note that “official government publications are not eligible for copyright in any form by anyone” – the information can be used, as it is public domain, but you cannot call it your original work. -- Kristi Towe, Coordinator


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Last updated on 06/26/2014
  Copyright © 2014 Kristi Towe and Sharon Sanders