Libraries and Wills and Intestate Records
- Probate
Obviously, wills and the many records
generated during disposition of an estate, often
point to a date of death. But you will also find
key information within wills such as family
relationsips, birth order, which children are
minors at the time, and the married names of
daughters.
Probate records are available from the Clerk
of Court.
When a person dies leaving an estate, the
county government is reponsible for seeing that
it is distributed according to law. How that is
done depends on whether or not the deceased left
a will. If the deceased leaves a will, it will be
recorded and filed with the local court This
process is called probate. The
executor named in the will is charged with
carrying out the distribution of the estate under
the supervision of the court.
If, on the other hand, the deceased dies
without leaving a will, then he or she has died intestate,
and the government must appoint an administrator
to distribute the estate according the law. In
either case, several types of records are
generated through the court and may be of
interest to the genealogist.
Obituaries are good places to
find vital statistic information and to uncover
family relationships. Modern day obituaries are
usually submitted to local newspapers, or
newspapers covering the general area where a
person spent a significant part of their life, by
the funeral director handling the funeral and
burial. The information is collected by them from
the family member arranging the funeral.
Of course, the key information in an obituary
are the name of the deceased, their death date
and place, often their spouse's name, frequently
their birth date and place, and commonly their
place of burial.
A second bit of key data obtained from
obituaries is the place of residence of surviving
family members, and, in the case of women, their
married names. Third, you can find the name of
the cemetery a person is buried in from his or
her obituary. This can often lead to the
discovery of unkown family members who were
buried in the same lot.
Because much of the information in obituaries
is reported second-hand, you should always try
corraborate it with other sources.
The Social Security death index
can be used to determine a month/year of death
and a probable location. They are usually
available at the LDS Family History
Centers and they are also available for
searching on-line at www.infobases.com.
These indexes contain the following:
- The name of the person as it appears in
the Social Security records. This is the
name they gave when applying for their
social security card and often
corresponds to the name as it appeared on
their birth certificate which was
frequently used in obtaining a card. Note
that most women have the name on their
Social Security records changed when they
marry.
- The individual's Social Security number.
- The date of birth as it appeared on the
documents used when registering for
Social Security.
- City, county, and state (there can be
several entries) to which Social Security
benefits were mailed. This location
frequently corresponds to the last
residence. However, in many cases it
corresponds to the address of the
relative to which a final death benefit
was mailed.
- The date of death. This is most often the
date as appeared on the death certificate
of the person in question.
Funeral home and mortuary
records often contain at least the date of
burial, but often the date of death, age at
death, and family relationships. These records
are kept at the funeral home, and frequently pass
to the descendants when a funeral home ceases
business. If the business is sold to another
owner, the records are frequently passed on to
the new owners.