Death Records Now

My future mother-in-law has proven herself to be a serious problem in the past two months. She currently lives with my fiance and myself and has claimed she will be selling a few electronics we own (including a relatively large TV, an Xbox 360, and possibly our computer) using false bills of sale she obtained from my fiance’s sister, a known thief (she’s headed to court on theft charges next week). His sister’s boyfriend is a local police officer, which is the only reason why I’m worried about these "bills of sale" actually being verified.. Somehow. I’m assuming her background will work against her anyway, though.

The TV was obtained free of charge from a man/woman (the story always changes) who was going to throw it out and was my fiance’s birthday gift last year. His mother now claims she never gave it to him and is hers, and that she can "ask (insert name she thinks she "bought" the TV from here) on the phone!" The Xbox 360 I am willing to part with, as it’s difficult to determine who is the legal "owner" of it – my fiance’s friend sold it to HIM, but I’m not sure whose money he used to purchase it..

We currently live in a tiny home that his grandmother rents out and, for some reason, she will not do anything about his mother or his sister. Along with claiming everything is hers, his mother frequently complains that nobody likes her and screams at us that we hate her when we ask her to do something for herself, lives on the computer (she’s a FarmVille addict – to the extreme), insists that she never has money yet supports her smokes-like-a-chimney cigarette habit (her "only income" is food stamps!!), and blames my fiance for "everything that is wrong in her life." She also tells us to do absolutely everything for her, and my fiance complies.. Because anything else would start World War III. She is allowed to stay regardless of her behavior because she is the sole owner of a car that shouldn’t even be running – the only way for us to get to work (my fiance and I are currently at the "we have interviews" stage, however – his grandmother is currently the only one who is working). She is also chummy with the landlord, which I’m guessing is another reason why nothing is being done about her.

My fiance’s sister is a lost cause. She steals all the time, including from us. She finally got caught by an ex-boyfriend’s grandmother and has a blemish on her record. She used to beat me on a regular basis to "toughen me up" – my fiance lives in the south, and I am from Michigan. At first I simply went with it, but the "beating" escalated. A week ago, she punched me in the back and side of the head as hard as she could for saying her insults were getting repetitive, then hopped on Facebook and the phone to gab to her friends about how I deserved to die and saying I was "talking s*** about the family," using it as her excuse to her friends to have punched me. I was going to file a report, but my fiance told me they wouldn’t do anything but record that it happened. I decided it wasn’t worth it, and saved the Facebook messages just in case as well as reporting the messages to Facebook as hate speech. As far as I know, Facebook deleted the messages.

Long story short: My fiance’s mother and sister are insane, nobody will do anything about it, and I desperately want to know what my options are. I have a small amount of cash that may be enough to rent out a room from a family friend for a month, but that’s it (if it’s even agreed to). I want to ask one family friend in particular for help, but I feel it’s too much to be asking for myself AND my fiance to have a place to stay. My fiance also insists that he refuses to go to my home state because he despises my family and thinks his family will let his dogs starve to death. He’s also worried about his grandmother’s health..

Sorry about the long description..

Any help is sincerely appreciated!!
I’ve been able to convince my fiance on a few occasions to get away from their madness and go to Michigan with me, but I haven’t gathered up the courage to actually ASK someone about it. Is my situation bad enough to be able to ask without feeling like a mooch..?

I recommend that you re-read your question to yourself, and knowing all of the other background that goes along with it, ask yourself if this is really what you want for a future life?
The only thing that might have some value here would be the love, support, and commitment from your fiance. But he clearly doesn’t have your interests at heart. A man who truly loves and respects you, will also love and respect all who love you, but this guy despises your family.

I can only guess that you are holding on to some faint hope that things will somehow get better. That your fiance will one day treat you with the love and respect you deserve, and his family will suddenly stop their criminal ways. But you don’t control that.

The only thing you control is you, where you choose to live, and who you choose to spend the rest of your life with. If your fiance’s life doesn’t mesh with what you believe to be right for you, then he isn’t a good choice for a husband, or any kind of a life partner for that matter.

This man has more concern for his dogs, and his grandmother than he does for you.

I hope from that you can figure out a way to permanently separate yourself from all of this trouble. You deserve better.

My mother-in-law misinformed the funeral home by stating on my husband’s death certificate that we was divorced. We are not on the best of terms and she refuses to go to the funeral home and sign a request to amend the death certificate. She is doing this out of spite because my husband and I were separated (he was a violent and abusive alcoholic). and he was living with her at the time of his death. I am sorry, but my son’s safety was my #1 priority. It was not a healthy environment for either my son or myself.

I was just contacted by the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Insurance Dept. that they are holding money that I am entitled to claim as his surviving spouse. Unfortunately, I need to get the death certificate amended to reflect that we were married at the time of his death. The Office of Vital Records suggested that I contact the court and request a certified copy of a court order establishing our marital status at the time of my husband’s death. It also said that I may want to contact an attorney. Unfortunately, I am a disabled widow on SSI and can’t afford to pay an attorney for advice. I’m sure that once I know where to go and what to do that I can fill out and file the necessary documents.

Please help me with as much information as possible to enable me to complete this task without the need for a lawyer. I live in Porterville, California and need to know which court to contact to accomplish this task.

Thanking you in advance for your most valuable time and assistance.

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/certlic/birthdeathmar/Pages/CorrectingorAmendingVitalRecords.aspx
1-800-735-2922
1-888-877-5379

I’m hoping for some advice here. Normally, I would go to my mother for all things genealogical, but she’s more “old school” in that she’s used to dealing with hard copies that she has ordered and received. The majority of her research (the last 30+ years) was before the advent of ancestry.com, GenWeb, and online depositories put together by the individual states.

For most of my family lines, I’m the same way. My family is from Kansas/Oklahoma and North Carolina (so far). My ex-husbands paternal line is from Pennsylvania. All of which require you to write and order vital records directly from their local/state offices. Then it’s just a matter of scanning the received records onto my computer and inputting the information into my genealogy program.

However, my ex-husbands maternal line isn’t nearly as easy or clean-cut. They are primarily from Virginia/West Virginia which has started putting all their vital records online. So it’s easy to run a search of who I’m looking for and get immediate access to copies of their records. Then it’s off to ancestry.com or other sites to look up census records, burial records, tombstones, etc.

The trouble I’m facing now is that I just don’t know how to file the items on my computer. It started off easy enough. I had the main surname file for my mother-in-law’s maiden name. Within that file I had separate folders for her direct ancestors (Gma, Gpa, GGma, GGpa, etc.) with secondary files by their siblings.

For example:

I would have a folder for “Joe Blow” (Gpa) which I would save all his pertinent documents (birth, death, marriage, census records, etc.). Next to that folder would be one titled “Joe Blow Siblings”. Within that folder would be additional folders for each of his brothers and sisters.

Then, because I was getting into extended family, I would have subfolders for their spouse, their children, their spouses parents, etc. If I was doing any of the other lines, I wouldn’t be going that far right now, but because the files are online for the taking, I figured “why not”? Plus, I’m a little anal when it comes to blank spots, so I think a bit of OCD has kicked in.

Anyway, this is where the problem has arisen.

The family is primarily from the Cabell/Wayne County areas of W.VA and what I started to see what cousins marrying cousins (some 1st cousins, but a lot of 3rd cousins, 4th cousins, etc.). People have started to pop up in two or three (or more) areas of the family. In one spot they might be a spouse, then later as a brother, and then again as a 2nd spouse or something.

Obviously, the way I was doing it isn’t working anymore. I was going to start ending up with multiple folders for the same person and a billion shortcuts which would just cause even more confusion.

I’m sure others have run across this problem in small communities in which their families are long standing residents. Is there a better way to save the information to the computer? Has anyone figured out a good way to file their info in a way that makes sense, is easy to access, and limits the possibilities of duplicate individuals?

I’ve currently done away with the former system and just have all the saved files in the folder for my mother-in-law. But now I have over 700 files sitting there and several people with the exact same names (ex: Benjamin Franklin Doe, Andrew Jackson Blow).

Thanks so much for the advice!
Thanks Tom, I totally agree. And on a side note: I "enjoy" how someone gave you a thumbs down for your advice, yet didn’t offer any of their own.
Marci — Thanks for the tip! I had no idea this resource existed. I’m going to definitely check it out! Thanks again!

WOW! You are way more organized than I am. I file under my and DH’s 4 grandparent surnames with file-names that indicate the name or family the document concerns. Fortunately I have not had any crossovers. If I find a particularly interesting family, I might have a sub-folder for them. I feel so disorganized.

Lisa Louise Cook on Genealogy Gems has covered this topic several times on her podcasts, You might want to listen to some of the suggestions she and her guests have had.

My grandfather died back in January and only now is the solicitor has decided to make a public record of his death in the paper to which asks if anyone wants to contest the will, is this standard UK law or is it an optional requirement to which the solicitor gets more money?

Never heard of this one.
If the will is written soundly why or indeed how could anyone contest it?
I obtained probate on the estate of my mother-in-law (UK) without doing this.
The will is a public document anyway.

He either owned or worked in a brewery in St Paul, Minnessota. I live in Austria now and have no job and no credit card so I am finding it very difficult to research. I know from the few pictures I have found that he worked in St Paul in 1955. I have only been able to find his New York entrance records. It is very important to my mother in law. Her mother told her he abandoned her but apon the mothers death, she found a box full of letters from him saying how much he loved her and pleading for her to write him. My mother in law lived a horrable life and if I could shed just a little bit of light on her past, I hope it will bring her some closure. I believe he died in 1965 and was born in 1911. Ihope someone can help.

If this is the same man, then I’m afraid he did die in 1965.

Herman Hemesath died in Santa Cruz, California on 28 March 1965. It lists his date of birth as 30 May 1911 in Germany.

Ironically, I found 2 other men with the same name living in Iowa. One was born in 1908 and died in 2000, the other is still living. I have no idea if there was any relationship between them all.

I did find several telephone listings and addresses for people with this last name (which I’ve organized by state for you) at this site: http://www.whitepages.com/10001/log_feature/sort/search/Replay/?search_id=50191321541355727642&sort=state

Can someone please give me some good FREE sites for geneology searches–I don’t need some where to make a tree just searches and also some where that I can access florida death records for free—Thanks I would pay if I had the money but my family is running short on money right now and I want to find as much info as I can before my 81 year old great grandmother dies please—With prayers she will live much longer and I am truly hoping she does because she is my best friend but that’s here nor there—Mainly I just need those sites==Thanks

My favorite place to realize how many sites there are, is www.cyndislist.com. The trick is knowing that if gr grandma’s parent(s) come from a certain place, the ‘best’ place may be a specialized one, not the "we have 3 trillion names in our database" type. www.usgenweb.com is a volunteer network covering the US, then there is a great tutorial at rootsweb. Also at rootsweb.com (click on searches) is the social security death index. If HER parents died since 1960ish, they are likely in that file. It won’t have certificates itself, but dates and places help. I have never met a mortician I didn’t like.. meaning, if she recalls the cemetery or funeral home, they often will send the file (and they are the ones who fill out the certificates).
Second… take 5 more points and please REPOST with names and approx dates and places (not her, since she is still living). Trust me, you’ll get leads or solid facts.
I am in midst of doing the re-work for my mother in law 84 and her 94 yr old partner. Scanning old pics so she can use her new computer to zoom in (losing her sight, so this is great). Yes, dear.. it IS here or there, its a wonderful gift of yourself, and way to bond even stronger. You go, girl.