To learn more:
• Your Guide to Cemetery Research by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack (Betterway Books)
• “Nineteenth-Century Death Records: How Dependable Are They?” by William B. Saxbe Jr., National Genealogical Society Quarterly 87 (March 1999)
Year states began death registration
Alabama — 1908
Alaska — 1913
Arizona — 1909
Arkansas — 1914
California — 1905
Colorado — 1907
Connecticut — 1897
Delaware — 1881
District of Columbia — 1855
Florida — 1899
Georgia — 1919
Hawaii — 1896
Idaho — 1911
Illinois — 1916
Indiana — 1900
Iowa — 1880
Kansas — 1911
Kentucky — 1911
Louisiana — 1914
Maine — 1892
Maryland — 1898
Massachusetts — 1841
Michigan — 1867
Minnesota — 1900
Mississippi — 1912
Missouri — 1910
Montana — 1907
Nebraska — 1905
Nevada — 1911
New Hampshire — 1905
New Jersey — 1848
New Mexico — 1919
New York — 1880
North Carolina — 1913
North Dakota — 1908
Ohio — 1909
Oklahoma — 1908
Oregon — 1903
Pennsylvania — 1906
Rhode Island — 1852
South Carolina — 1915
South Dakota — 1905
Tennessee — 1914
Texas — 1903
Utah — 1905
Vermont — 1857
Virginia — 1912
Washington — 1907
West Virginia — 1917
Wisconsin — 1907
Wyoming — 1909
OBITUARIES AND FUNERAL HOMES
• Cyndi’s List
<www.cyndislist.com/obits.htm>, <www.cyndislist.com/cemetery.htm>: Links to sites with obituary data, cemetery transcriptions and funeral home records.
• funeralCENTRAL
<www.funeralcentral.com>: Publishes funeral notices similar to those submitted by funeral homes to newspapers. It’s a free service, but the funeral home must send the notice for inclusion in the database.
• Funeral Net
<www.funeralnet.com>: Locate cemeteries and funeral homes, as well as search for obituaries. The database of funeral homes was compiled from The National Yellow Book of Funeral Directors.
• Obituary Central
<www.obitcentral.com/obitsearch>: Locates, categorizes and presents obituaries online. The Obituary Links Page is arranged by state and county, with thousands of links to online obituaries, cemetery transcriptions and death notices.
• Obituary Daily Times
<www.rootsweb.com/~obituary>: Lists not only newspapers that are being indexed, but those that are in need of indexers. If the newspaper has a Web site, there will be a link to it.
• Obituary Lookups
<freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~obitl>: A community of researchers from all over the world willing to look up obituaries for free.
• Online Searchable Death Indexes for the USA
<www.germanroots.com/deathrecords.html>: Links to online death indexes and databases from all over the country.
