Reconstructing the Lives of Your Ancestors

Reconstructing the Lives of Your Ancestors

Reconstructing the lives of your dead ancestors is a bit like piecing together a large and complicated puzzle. Luckily, little bits of information are available in many different places if you know where to look. As the old saying goes, two things in everyone’s life are inevitable: death and taxes. By researching these two aspects of your ancestor’s existence, you can find information and leads that you might not be able to find otherwise.

Death certificates are a great place to start looking for information on your ancestors. The government didn’t actually require states to officially register a person’s death, however, until the twentieth century, so death certificates may not be available for more distant ancestors. Sometimes death registers were kept on a citywide or countywide basis before the twentieth century. Unfortunately, registering a death was voluntary so your ancestor may not be listed, and the information that was provided on the deceased varied greatly in detail. If you decide to look for a more recent ancestor’s death certificate, you first must know three vital pieces of information: full name, death date, and location of death. Knowing the location of death will allow you to locate the state’s vital records office, either on the internet or in books, and learn about the state’s procedures for obtaining of a copy of a death certificate. Many charge a fee, and some require you to provide proof that you are a descendant. The more recent a death certificate is, the more information it will provide. Most contain not only date and location of death but also birth date and birthplace, spouse’s name, occupation, and reason for death or how long the person has been sick. While death certificate are considered a primary source, they do contain errors, and the information contained within them, particularly the manner of death as pronounced by coroners in the early twentieth century, should be scrutinized and substantiated by corresponding evidence.

Another great comprehensive source of information for the recently deceased is the Social Security Death Index, which contains vital information on 64 million people, most of whom are Americans. If your relative filed for Social Security and later died between 1962 and 1988, then he may be included in the index, which also includes a smaller number of records dating back to 1937 and railroad retirement records from around 1900 to the 1950s. If you manage to find your relative in the index, you will learn his or her social security number and can use it to file for his or her social security application, which will provide you with even more information. Using the Social Security Death Index can be tricky, however, and you should search using the least amount of information possible so that you don’t eliminate your ancestor from the search results. The index is available online and on a variety of computer programs.

State and territory death indexes are similar to the Social Security Death Index but contain different information. They also are not standardized and vary in their availability and the amount of information they provide. Wills and estate document can also provide fascinating clues to ancestor’s life. Even poorer people made wills, not only to ensure the correct distribution of their belonging but also to share wisdom or hidden emotions. Many wills are fascinating and provide clues about the members of a family, children and in-laws and even slaves. They can also indicate some of the personal characteristic of your ancestors, and their generousness or stinginess. Wills can be found on the internet and in books. Finally, funeral home records and obituaries can also provide valuable clues to your ancestors’ lives after they have died.

Finally, taxes, on the federal, state, county-wide, or city-wide level, were almost inevitably paid by your adult male ancestors during their lifetimes. They can tell you where a person lived, when they lived there, and, perhaps, other interesting information about their lifestyles. Taxes were very different in previous centuries, however, and it’s best to do your research on the taxes existing during the time period and in the area in which your ancestor lived. Different types of taxes were levied by landlords, the government, and even the church, and varied from marriage taxes, tax lists, and poor taxes to poll taxes, rent rolls, and quit rents. Tax lists can be found in a variety of libraries, archives, and on the internet, so keep looking even if it seems you aren’t finding anything. You may also want to study the handwritten tax list, since the process of transcribing and indexing the records can lead to spelling errors.

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