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Posts Tagged ‘Family History’

How can I find out the truth?

June 16th, 2011 2 comments

My grandpa died two months before i was born and just recently i found out from my Uncle that my father lied about my grandpa’s death. My dad said Gramps died in Illinois but my uncle said he died in Alabama and said something about police records. Nobody will tell me anything and its killig me to not know. How can I find the information I need? Please help me… Im desperate.

Track down your family history to figure out who your grandfather is from your dad’s or uncle’s background they should share the same father. It shouldn’t be that hard to be who your grandfather is. Go over and fidn your father’s birth certificate usually parents name are written on the certificate just to tell that the person have parents.

Maximizing Genealogical Value of Obituaries

April 13th, 2011 No comments

Obituaries offer a wealth of information about your family. They have important facts about the deceased and important dates that you can use to piece together clues about the history of your family. Here’s how you can find details to research from obituaries.

We all think differently and we all have different ways of processing information, which makes genealogy and ancestry research very confusing. Different historians and different family members keep records in different ways so sometimes finding the facts you need to piece together a family history are elusive.

There are thousands of databases out there claiming to have the answers, but in reality if you are disorganized, those databases are only going to make the confusion worse. And to top it off repetition in names, facts and even certain dates can cause further confusion. To clear up the confusion, here is the basic guideline of what to look for in an obituary and how to keep it all organized.

Searching for Clues in Obituaries

An obituary is the final record of a person’s life, information is included that can lead you to some amazing discoveries about your family. When you look at an obituary it is important that you pinpoint those bits of information and make a note of them. First read the obituary through once or twice just to get an idea of the information included. Then underline the important pieces of information. Read it over again to make sure you underlined everything of importance. Here are the things you will want to look for in an obituary:

  • The deceased’s full name
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Date of birth
  • Date of death
  • Place or City of Residence
  • Occupation
  • Military Service
  • Church Affiliation
  • Life events
  • Awards or Accomplishments
  • Names of survivors
  • Place where funeral or memorial service is held
  • Place of internment

Maximizing the Genealogical Value of Obituaries

Once you’ve read and reread the obituary and you’ve underlined the important pieces of information, the next step is to organize the information in a way you can access later and have a complete understanding of what it is you found important. You can download forms for free that can help you research genealogical clues from obituaries at Obituarieshelp.org

The first thing to do is copy down the information point by point. Then make notes about each point.

Questions to ask yourself as you go through each point are:

  • What information does this clue provide?
  • What public or historical records exist that will provide further information?
  • Where can I find those records?

The notes you make about each point can be anything related to genealogy research:

  • Personal notes – maybe you were reminded about a conversation you had with a relative about this point.
  • Family history notes – maybe another ancestor was a member of the same organization.
  • Notes about what you’ll want to research about this information – perhaps you want to look up how long this person was a member of this organization.
  • Where records that expand on this information might exist – make notes as to where you can find the answers to your questions.

Other notes might include tidbits of information from:

  • Phone book
  • City business directory
  • Internet
  • Church directory
  • School databases

Taking the time to go through obituaries carefully can go a long way to helping you find clues to your family history and connecting you to your ancestors and relatives. Names, places, and dates are just the starting point. There is so much to learn from obituaries, but you have to read between the lines. Not all the information will be there ready for you to see, you’ll have to do a little digging and a little research. Making notes and keeping your notes organized will help you get the information you are looking for.

Melanie Walters

How to obtain medical records of deceased relative from Florida?

June 29th, 2010 1 comment

I’ve lost 3 people in my family to a disease. I’ve been told to get their medical records for screening purposes regarding my own health and the health of my children. I’ve been able to get the records of all but one. This is my brother whom died in Florida in 2007. We are told the only people that can get the records are the three listed on the death certificate. I had one of them do this. Now, we’re being told differently – that only the person who filled out the death certificate form (his wife) can access the records. Currently she is already remarried and wants no part in helping. What is the law? Who exactly can get the records and how do we go about this without getting help from the wife? We are out of state. We also were told my doctor could not request these records without a court order showing "just cause" – family history of a disease is not a reason… so we are told. Please help.

I would suggest you hire an attorney who specializes in health and/or family law. Good luck.

How to Find People Online Free–old Family, Classmates, Lost Love, Friends and Anyone From Your Past

February 7th, 2010 No comments

If you’re trying to find anyone on the Web, whether a long lost friend from high school, lost love, long lost part of family history, or anyone from your past , I suggest you some steps below which will help.
Step1.Google
Do a Google search on the name, of course.

Step2.People Search EnginesThere are a few search engines that fine-tune regular Google results top focus on people-finding.If you’re trying to figure out how to find people online or offline, then you may very well be interested in something called an online people finder service. These services allow you to find people such as an old classmate, an old friend, a relative or whomever else for that matter. There are various sites such as these available online, some of which are free and some of which have paid inclusions. The paid ones give you a little more info and more individualized for more of an investigation type of a situation. The free ones will give you things like the person’s name, relatives, location and even a phone number.
These website services are incredibly useful but also convenient technology wise. Back in the day before these sites and the Internet existed you would have to do some hefty detective work for yourself in order to find any information about anyone, even going as far as hiring a private investigator which could cost thousands of dollars! Now you simply turn on your computer, visit the website, enter in the information it asks for, and voila you’re home free.

You can find anyone you want, day or night, simple as that, all you need is an Internet connection and a clue! Also, I’m finding that a lot of these services talk about celebrity people finders, and on a lot of these sites it actually does work! The inclusions will include things like fan email address, fan p.o box, location, age of celebrity, and a lot more. Pretty cool stuff, and as said above it’s a great way to get reintroduced to an old mate, friend, or a relative and YES these do work, check them out the next time you are looking for someone online!

The Internet is a great place to find old family and friends – if you know where to look. Two websites you should check out if you need to find an old colleague are WhoWhere at www.Reunion.com, and FreePeopleSearchInfo at www.FreePeople-SearchInfo.com . These sites give you a variety of ways to search for people on and off the Internet, and just might help you find someone you haven’t talked to in years.

Step3.Phone Book.The beauty of online searching is that there are now national (and international) phone books, so you can search the entire US.

Step4.Google News.If your person was mentioned in the news, then a search of news past and present may well turn up the name.

Step5.SSDI.The grimly-named Social Security Death Index has records of 82 million US deaths since 1963. Unless you’re sure you’re looking for someone who is still alive, SSDI is a good place to search.

Step6.Intelius.This is a fee-based service, but they have a deep database, and you can do a preliminary search for free, which will show (among other things) age, city and relatives.

Step7.Social Networks —Most of the people-information on the various “friends” sites on the internet will show up in a regular Google search, but they can easily get lost. Head directly to MySpace, FaceBook, and Classmates.com (for a school-specific search) to see if your person is listed (and pay attention to some of the advanced search functions offered, like the Friend Finder at FaceBook).

Step8Also search on Google Groups, and BlogSearch to unearth even more results.

Step9.Book Searches.Was your person ever mentioned in a book? A search at Amazon Books and Google Books will look inside the books themselves.

Step10.Jigsaw.comThis site is the best business contacts database in existence. It is a fee-based site, but you can do a preliminary search for free and find out if your person is in the database, and what company they are with.

Step11.Family History:I can only touch on the vast genealogy databases on the web, but for people searching (past and present), it’s hard to beat FamilySearch. The Ellis Island database has millions of records of immigrants to the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Cyndi’s List is a huge directory of other ancestry resources.

Step11.Public records.If you know a city or county where your person lives, then public records are another resource. They are too diverse to summarize here, but try a search on: registered voters COUNTY NAME, state.
Hoping all these helps you in your searching for the desired person.

Deep Chandra Pant
http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/how-to-find-people-online-freeold-family-classmates-lost-love-friends-and-anyone-from-your-past-731669.html

How Can I Assess BIRTH And DEATH Records, MARRIAGE Records And Other PUBLIC Records For FREE …?

January 11th, 2010 7 comments

I’m trying to track down my family history. Mama can only tell me so much, and then it’s a dead end. All the older folks in my family are gone, and the public records at the courthouse only go so far. Mama is also ill, so she gets short-tempered if I ask her too many questions. I have to almost catch her when she’s in a reminiscent mood … and THEN I’ll have to be ready with a tape recorder, or I’ll miss a lot of what she’s got to say.

I can’t find a good online site that’ll give me anything! I can, of course, pay for the records I need just to get the names and the dates that I’m looking for … but it’ll cost me a pretty penny! Some of these records won’t be in the free archives for a few more years, since they wait 50 years after the person’s death to release them to the public for free.

If it were a simple thing like tracing one family lineage, I probably wouldn’t have much of a problem. But I’m talking centuries of scattered slaves with no Census Bureau records, as well as Native American ancestry … and I don’t even know what tribe!

It’ll be REALly interesting to find out if I’m related to a certain public figure with whom I share a last name … maybe one of his ancestors owned one of mine?

But, Alas! I don’t exactly know where to start!

Wendy provided you with some valuable advise. You will incur some expenses as she said and cyndi’s list is an invaluable resource. There is a site I recently found that will provide you with some public records for many local courthouses:
https://www.virtualgumshoe.com/resources/index.asp?CATEGORY_ID=90. Many public records for various counties are available. I’ve been able to obtain copies of actual documents (without visiting the courthouse or paying a fee) for my tree. Even my marriage record is listed on my county site!
It’s great because most public records will cost you and these are available on-line. Not every county is listed here but there are many. If you can obtain any tidbits of information from your Mama write them down. Gather up everything you can. A great site to help you begin learning how to research and organize the information you collect and gather is http://www.findingdulcinea.com/guides/Family-and-Relationships/Genealogy.html?xa=1.
There are many genealogical sites that are free. One thing you should remember about the information you find that others have compiled is – you must research the historical records for yourself for accuracy. The compilers’ may have just copied what others have found. Make sure the information is correct by viewing official documents, i.e., marriage, birth, census records, etc. yourself. Here are some very good free sites:
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp FamilySearch.org is a non-profit service sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You can also download free software that will help you keep your family tree organized.
http://usgenweb.org/. This site has been created by a group of volunteers that are committed to keep genealogy free and have provided a website for genealogical research in every county and state in the United States.
http://rwguide.rootsweb.ancestry.com/. RootsWeb is also a great site. It’s funded by Ancestry.com. It provides links to ton’s of additional sites as well.
http://www.ellisisland.org/genealogy/index.asp . Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. Genealogy Learning Center. This site has also has some great getting started tips and free downloadable charts and forms.
http://www.myheritage.com/. Is free, private and secure. You can create a web site, build and save a family tree, share photos and videos and much more.
http://www.geni.com/home. You can build your family tree and invite others to join via email and expand your tree. You can add photo’s and video’s.

What You Can Learn from Funeral Records

January 5th, 2010 7 comments

Funeral records are documents kept by funeral homes detailing the funeral services that were registered with them. When it comes to conducting research on the death of an individual, death records are often the first recourse while funeral documents are often (unjustly) overlooked.

One of the primary reasons why funeral records are ignored is that, unlike death records, they are not considered public records. Funeral homes are not required by law to release funeral documents unless there is just cause. But as of late, more funeral homes are allowing the general public to request for this information, provided that the name of the deceased and the date of death are provided accurately by the requesting party.

Since the funeral home director is tasked with the responsibility of filling out the death certificate, the latter is also part of the funeral records they keep at most funeral homes. Aside from the date of birth and death, other information that you can find in the death certificate includes the name of the spouse, name of parents, the place of residence at death and the name and location of the cemetery.

On the actual funeral records, one can find a list of surviving family members of the individual who passed away. Sometimes, even the names and addresses of the in-laws and grandchildren are included on this list, since this will be needed for placing obituaries in newspapers.

Although not often the case, there are instances when funeral documents also reveal the deceased person’s last will or testament, birth certificate, insurance policy and military record. These information are of course especially relevant for those trying to trace their lineage, track down ancestors and uncover their own family history.

Funeral Records Go ‘Live’ Online

Due to the sheer volume of funeral records, many mortuary facilities have chosen to digitize all their records and offer them online. Being able to access funeral documents online is advantageous for mortuary facilities since this saves them the additional cost of having to maintain a separate physical archive, sometimes even employing the services of a third party record keeping company.

For people wishing to acquire copies of funeral records, retrieving them online preserves these records for posterity. Digitized copies mean that the risk of these records getting lost, stolen or damaged is significantly reduced and are more likely to be able to withstand the test of time.

One caveat for anyone accessing funeral records is that these records may not be entirely accurate since most of the information is supplied by the surviving family members and then compiled by the funeral director. As such, any information that you learn from funeral documents has to be double checked against other sources of data before they can be deemed as conclusive.

The registrar of vital statistics, the county of death and cemeteries may also have some related records that can be utilized for research purposes and serve as excellent supporting documents for funeral records.

Amit Mehta
http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/what-you-can-learn-from-funeral-records-60065.html

Is there a way to obtain the medical records of my grandmother who died 23 years ago?

January 5th, 2010 9 comments

These records would be very helpful to me because I will be getting genetic testing done in the future, and it helps to have detailed family medical history. She died very quickly of a fast moving cancer, and recently my dad- her son- also died of a fast moving cancer. I am concerned for my own health because this happened in both generations, and I take after that side. I am getting my dad’s medical records now. The problems are that I was not the executor of my grandmother, my uncle was, and he is also passed on. In short, I am the only living decendant of my grandmother. Plus, she died in 1984 and she was in New York and I live in another state. I do have her death certificate (which doesn’t include a space for a cause of death, oddly enough, though she was diagnosed), I know which hospital she was in (NYU) and when and for how long. I know she was diagnosed with a specific cancer, but I don’t know the name. I don’t mind paying a fee for the records, I just need them.

You may have to get an attorney to help you get them. Or may your doctor would help out, I really don’t know. You do need the records for yourself, I’m sure it would give your doctors some insight into what could potentially happen.

Finding Free Death Records Online

December 27th, 2009 4 comments

Are you looking for information on finding free death records online? There are many different reasons why you might want to look for free death records. A very popular reason many people choose for doing this is to find out more about their family history. They may search to do a family tree or to track their genealogy.

Whatever the reasons you have for finding free death records online, it’s important to understand that this can be done quicker and easier than ever before. You can find important vital records such as the death history of someone or a family from the Internet. In the past, it wouldn’t have been so easy to track down these death records.

If you know where the person died, you could go to the local government in that state or records-keeping courthouse to public records on the person. This will typically be the most accurate method of finding death records and in the past, this was pretty much the only method. That is not true anymore today.

Now if you have a computer with an Internet connection, you can begin finding free death records of almost anyone to have ever died in the United States. Laws dictate that these records must be filed and kept in regards to deaths of people in this country. The records are also available to the public if you know how and where to look for them. Only in rare cases are the death records sealed by the courts, sometimes for the protection of the family.

The exact amount of information listed in the death record may vary depending on the state. There is also different information that you will find depending on which service you use to get the death record. Some databases will only give you a certain amount of information for free and then you will need to pay a fee of some sort to obtain the rest of the information in the report.

So what are some things you can find in this death record? Usually you will get the date of death, date of birth, obituary/death notice, cemetery location, records of spouses, records of other family members, cause of death, death certificate, funeral records, genealogy database and more. The best part is that you can often get all of this information for free online and in just a short amount of time. All you need to know is the name and state of the person you are looking for.

If you don’t know the state of death, you can always search nationwide but if multiple results come up, it might be more difficult to narrow down which ones are the right ones for you without having more information. The more info you have, the better but you can still do a search with no more than a name.

Internet databases are now becoming the most common method of searching for these types of public records. They are quick, easy and accurate and all can be found from your home computer with ease.

Rose Quadee
http://www.articlesbase.com/relationships-articles/finding-free-death-records-online-695679.html

Performing a Death Records Search Online

December 24th, 2009 No comments

Performing a death records search online is easier than ever before. Public death records have been around for a very long time. In fact, history shows that they are one of the earliest public records ever kept and they were introduced over a hundred years ago. This means people have been keeping records of deaths for a very long time now and continue to do so each and every day. Today, death records are considered part of vital public records along with marriage records, divorce records and birth records. This means that this information is available for anyone from the public to get.

While it has been considered public record for a long time, it wasn’t always so easy to get. You had to go through a lot of “red tape” to get records from the past and you usually had to drive to the actual location of the death to access the records. Today, advancements in the Internet have made all of this a thing of the past. You can now get public death records using the Internet.

This means if you have a computer with a web connection, you can begin searching online for any record of almost anyone who has died in the United States. It’s fast and it’s easy to do. You don’t have to worry that you don’t have a lot of experience with the Internet or that you might not know how to do it. Good databases for these records are easy to use even if you have little or no experience with the Internet or computers. You simply fill out some basic information and allow the search to generate your results.

You can learn a great deal about a person from their death records, especially if there was also an obituary included with the record. You can most often learn the particulars of the deceased and their spouse and you will often learn about their children, parents and other survivors. You may learn about the death, the cause of death, the cemetery of burial and other burial matters.

Death records are important if you are searching for past family history and want to trace your heritage, especially since they often tell the parents, children and other relatives. Death records can sometimes also be helpful in background checks of people still living. Death records can help you in finding a long-lost relative or out of state friend.

Performing a search online takes all the mystery and stress out of finding your death records. You don’t have to worry about traveling to the location of where the death records are physically kept. In fact, you may not even know exactly where the death records are kept. You can begin your online search on nothing more than a single name.

Additionally, it’s all done confidentially from the privacy of your own home. You will never have to identify yourself or answer personal questions about why you want the death records. Because they are public, you have the right to look them up if you want and for whatever reasons you want, as long as they are not used to commit some type of crime.

Rose Quadee
http://www.articlesbase.com/relationships-articles/performing-a-death-records-search-online-705496.html

What’s in a Public Death Record

December 22nd, 2009 4 comments

What kind of information can you find in a public death record? What makes these records one of the most commonly searched for types of vital records in America? If you’ve never actually searched for a death record before, you might be surprised to learn about some of the stuff that is found within it. These records can be very informative in both information on the deceased and also information on their family and survivors.

Here are some of the basics you can find in a public death record:

· Name of the deceased

· Date of the death

· Date of birth

· Obituary/death notice

· Cemetery location/ burial details

· Records of spouses

· Records of children and other family members

· Cause of death

· Death certificate

· Funeral records

· Genealogy database

· And more

The exact results of the death record will depend on different factors. For example, different states may have different laws regarding exactly what gets recorded at death. So a death record from one state may contain additional information than that of another state.

Another factor that can contribute to what’s in the death record is where you obtain the records. There are many different databases online offering death records but they are not all created equally. One may provide more information than the other and one may be more confidential and accurate than the other. Some may provide basic info for free and additional information for a fee. However all death records will have some or all of the basic information above.

Once you learn what’s in a public death record, you can see the different ways in which you might be able to use such records. Some people use them for tracking their family history or creating a family tree. This can be a great way to catch up on your family heritage and trace where you came from. You can look up your parents, grandparents and as further back as records allow and see all of your family history. You can then trace these people according to who married who, how many children they had and more.

Public death records are also sometimes used to do background checks or criminal type investigations on people. They can also be used to help write a biography of someone who is deceased. Because of the information held within a death record, especially if there is an obituary, you could learn more about someone’s life even if you had never met them while living.

This is just a touch on the most common uses of public death records. Since the information is public, anyone can get it and use it however they want, as long as they are not used to break the law in any way. A firm understanding of what’s in a public death record will help you use them to your advantage should you ever need to.

Rose Quadee
http://www.articlesbase.com/relationships-articles/whats-in-a-public-death-record-718235.html