The Sad Truth

You'd look forlorn, too, if you, like many other genealogists or family historians before you, had just discovered what has probably become one of the earliest lessons learned in taking up the research of any family tree, and that is the realization of the horrible fact that not everybody got a death certificate!  Sad, but true.

However, in order to overcome the obstacles of finding a death record for any given individual who died in Kentucky, and especially in Harrison County, I have assembled information regarding birth records collected over the decades and centuries, notes about their availability to the genealogist or family historian of today, and links to even more information on this web page.

While the purpose of this page is to explore what is available with regards to death records, much of the discussion is also equally applicable to the availability to birth records as well, as the laws requiring the collection of death data were not exclusive to that one vital statistic.

Death Records of the 18th & 19th Centuries

For residents of Harrison County what efforts were made to collect vital statistics in the 19th century were not long-standing.  Until 1911, when the maintenance of vital records (births, deaths, & marriages) were mandated by Kentucky law, there were only eight years in the decade before the Civil War and four years nearly a decade later when death records were collected and recorded.

Before 1852 the Commonwealth of Kentucky did not require the maintenance of death records at the county or statewide level.  In that year the Sutton Law was passed, a law which mandated the collection of vital statistics across the state, but it was a law which was evidently not very popular with those to whom the task was given of collecting vital statistics for their county to pass on to state offices in Frankfort.  Roseann Reinemuth Hogan writes in Kentucky Ancestry:  A Guide to Genealogical and Historical Research that "Tax assessors were given the job since they were the only officers of the court required to visit every Kentucky house in the course of their duties."  She reports that

The 1852 legislation directed all clergy, physicians, and other attending individuals to deposit their registers of births, deaths, and marriages (for the year ending 31 December) with the county clerk where the event occurred no later than 10 January of the following year.  The [tax] assessors were directed to interview heads of families to confirm these registers and return them 1 May annually with the tax lists.  The county clerks were, in turn, required to copy the lists and send copies to the state auditor of public accounts by 1 July annually.

Evidently the tax assessors and other local officials resented the extra burdens placed on them of having to collect and maintain such records, and as a result there are many inaccuracies (events are sometimes reported in one county's registers which actually occurred in another county) and gaps in coverage.  The Sutton Law was repealed in 1862, but after the Civil War another short-lived attempt at collecting vital statistics began in 1874.  For Harrison County the efforts ended in 1878, resulting in only four years for which death records exist for Harrison County citizens.

Overall, 19th century death records for Kentucky are easily accessible, whether by loan or purchase, on microfilm.

Microfilm - The microfilm of Harrison County birth records for 1852 thru 1859 and 1876 and 1878 (Roll #994037) may be ordered from the Kentucky Department of Libraries & Archives (Birth and marriage records for the same period (1852-59 & 1874-78) are also a part of the contents of that roll, as well as the vital records of Hancock, Hardin, and Harlan Counties).  These same microfilmed records are also available for loan or purchase from HeritageQuest.com (Series No. V158-11; the Heritage Quest microfilm is identified as Kentucky Vital Records and Statistics, 1852 - 1938: Birth and Death Statistics, 1852 - 1910. Birth, Marriage, and Death. Hancock, Hardin, Harlan, and Harrison Counties).

Publications - A book entitled Harrison County, Kentucky Records #1 (Deaths:  1852-1859 & Wills 1794-1850) is offered by Ye Olde Genealogie Shoppe a special order item.  This book refers to the same death records (1852-59) that are a part of the the microfilmed death records referred to above.

Other Northern Kentucky

Death Records (19th Century)

In addition to the periods cited for Harrison County, death records for other Kentucky counties do exist, however sporadically, before the 1910 law was passed establishing the Office of Vital Statistics.  In 1980 the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives published a volume entitled Inventory of Kentucky Birth, Marriage, and Death Records 1852 to 1910 compiled by Jeffrey M. Duff which catalogs the availability of vital records for each county before the 1911.  If you can't readily access a copy of the Duff book, you can determine what is available for each county on microfilm at the Kentucky Department of Libraries & Archives' website.

Other communities in the Northern Kentucky region also maintained death records in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, without regard to the state laws of the time.  The table below lists the communities and the dates of availability.  If your Harrison County research subject's family had ties to any of these communities in the periods for which records exist and/or have been microfilmed, you may wish to consult these records:

Click on the link for an interesting outline discussion of the availability of earlier (pre-1911) Kentucky vital records compiled by www.familysearch.org.

19th Century Death Announcements in

Local Harrison County Newspapers

On valuable resource in finding some proof of a Harrison County birth can be found in the volume entitled Vital Records from Newspapers of Harrison County, Kentucky, 1836-1900 compiled by Eric C. Nagle and published in 1996.  Eric has combed through the old 19th century newspapers of Harrison County, which have been microfilmed, and he has extracted all the birth, marriage, and death announcements and other such items that he could find, which can serve as a stand-in for a vital record when no such records were kept officially by either local or state governments.

However, while the title suggests a solid run of items from 1836 thru to 1900, the range of newspapers which have survived and which have been microfilmed actually covers a intermittent range of shorter spans, and so extracts have only been made for the following range of issues (Newspaper titles included are, The Cynthiana News, The Cynthiana Weekly News, The Log Cabin, The Western Visitor, and Town Talk).

• Scattered issues for Jan. 9, 1836 and Dec. 5, 1839.

• Oct. 13, 1851 - Feb. 19, 1857.

• July 5, 1866 - December 25, 1873

• Scattered issues for March 25, 1875, February 21, 1878, October 9, 1884, and October 7, 1885.

• September 10, 1887 - June 2, 1888.

• January 2, 1896 - December 29, 1900.

This volume can be found on the shelves of the Cynthiana-Harrison County Public Library in Cynthiana and is available for purchase from the compiler.  Visit FordNagle.com to learn more.

The 20th Century and Beyond

Kentucky death records indexes are available and accessible online, in libraries, or by by loan or purchase, in various formats:

The Internet  - Do you know that your family member/research subject died in Kentucky, but don’t have the exact date or location, or have the necessary citation to obtain a death certificate?  There are four sites on the World Wide Web that can help you out:  Ancestry.com (Kentucky Death Index, 1911-1999), Vitalsearch-ca.com (Kentucky Deaths Database (1911-2002)), Rootsweb.com (1911 - April, 2000), and The University of Kentucky (1911-1992) offer online indexes of Kentucky death records.  Accessing the Ancestry.com or the Vitalsearch-ca.com databases either may require a membership subscription to a their online offerings.

• Kentucky Death Records at Rootsweb.com
  Easiest to use, & the one I use the most often for quick answers.
   

• Kentucky Death Index at Vitalsearch-ca.com
  The best range of search options, but it may take some time to get used to the format.
   

• Kentucky Death Index, 1911-2000 at Ancestry.com
  This site is easy to use, but may require a subscription to Ancestry.com.
   

• Kentucky Vital Records Index at the University of Kentucky
  I call this site "The Ol’ Standby." It has been around forever, it seems, but offers only limited search options.

Compact Disc (CD) - A compact disc containing an index of Kentucky death records, covering the period from 1911 thru 1999 may be ordered from the Kentucky Department of Libraries & Archives.

Microfiche - This microform is available at several regional libraries in Kentucky, including the Cynthiana-Harrison County Public Library and the Kenton County Public Library in Covington.

Published Indexes - The volumes at the Cynthiana-Harrison County Public Library include the years from 1911 thru 1969.  The Kenton County Public Library, Covington, Kentucky also maintains a collection of these volumes, as well as do other libraries in the Northern Kentucky region.

Give The Gift Of Death!  (Huh!?!)

I recently came across a website called the Kentucky Vital Records Project a while back.  It is an effort by a group of dedicated volunteers to digitize images of Kentucky vital records, including death certificates, and make them available to the public, as well as to compile a searchable database of statistics from these same vital records for genealogists to use in their research.

Of course, you might want to check with this site to see if the death certificate(s) you are looking for might have already been posted.

So put your Kentucky death certificate(s) to work, or volunteer to help with the project.

Read more about it at the Kentucky Vital Records Project.

The Social Security Death Benefits Index

The Social Security Death Benefits Index (1937 to the present, mostly 1962 to the present) serves as a national death index of sorts, but such was not the intent in developing the index, and so the proper precautions should be taken.  The index is available at several sites  on the internet at Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Familytreemaker, Genealogy.com (The Social Security Death Index is accessible through Genealogy.com's 'Family Finder Search'), & Rootsweb.com.  It is also available on CD  (Order from Ancestry.com &  Genealogy.com).

Problems with the SSDBI:   A few years ago in putting together an index for a cemetery in Kentucky which had handled nearly 14,000 burials since 1867.  No dates of death were kept in the record books of the cemetery, only burial dates.  In attempting to build a database of vital statistics for those buried in this cemetery the Kentucky Death Index and Social Security Death Index were used, and a pattern of discrepancies with the Social Security information became apparent.

Using the burial dates, it was fairly easy to find a corresponding match for the person in the Kentucky Death Index for deaths after 1911, the year Kentucky began the statewide collection of vital statistics.  When I tried using the Social Security Death Index to find data I was actually very surprised to find that I was able to find a corresponding match with that index almost 90 percent of the time for deaths after 1960.

But another pattern came through in searching for data in the Social Security Death Index for several thousand people, and that was that sometimes the Kentucky Death Index and the Social Security Death Index would not give matching dates of death for what was obviously the same person.  When the dates of death didn't match, the Social Security Death Index would give a date of the 5th, 15th, or 25th for the person's date of death. The 15th was the most common occurrence when there was a difference.

Obituaries always proved the Social Security Death Index to be in error when conflicting dates from the two indexes were found.

So be aware that if the 5th, 15th, or 25th is given as a date of death in the Social Security Death Index, and if you have no other source to corroborate it, the Social Security Death Index may be incorrect. At present I have no explanation for this phenomenon, but the error may make a difference in finding and obtaining an obituary or death certificate, or not.

Old Breaking News!

Kentucky Death Certificates are now online! Filling in those dates of birth and death just got a lot easier. While microfilm of Kentucky death certificates is widely available at libraries throughout Northern Kentucky, the same images are now available online at Ancestry.com. A paid subscription is required to access them, but free trial memberships are always available. The database is entitled "Kentucky Death Records, 1852-1953." At the Ancestry.com home page click on "Search" at the top of the page, then "Browse by location" on the next page, choosing "Kentucky" from the list of states. Then you will see a list of record types available. Look for the title of the database under "Kentucky Birth, Marriage, & Death" and click. Hopefully, the answers to your questions should flow from there!

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All About

Kentucky Death Certificates

Almost all Kentucky death certificates, whatever the date, wherever the county, contain the following pieces of information:

• Full name, first, middle, & last.

• Date & place of birth

• Parents names & their places of birth

• Gender, race, & marital status, whether single, married, widowed, or divorced

• Name of spouse, if applicable, & whether still living or deceased

• Occupation, length of time in occupation, & when the occupation was last practiced

• Date, time, & cause or causes of death

• Age at death in years, months, & days

• Location of the deceased’s residence at the time of death & how long the deceased lived there

• Where & when they were buried or cremated

• Name & address of the funeral home or undertaker

• Name & address of the informant

If a death was caused by a suicide, homicide, or an accident, further details were recorded regarding the cause of death.

In later years more details were recorded in Kentucky death certificates, such as:

• Social Security Number

• Whether a military veteran, and the name of the war in which he or she served

If you would like to see for yourself, follow the links in the sidebar to the right to view images of photocopies I have made of some Kentucky death certificates.

Blanks on the death certificate forms were not always filled out, and so while the information should have been recorded, it doesn’t always mean that it was.

Of course, the information recorded on any Kentucky death certificate is only as good as the informant's knowledge of the deceased person's background or family.  Typically the informant was a member of the family, a spouse, parent, child, or sibling, but sometimes a physician or medical institution is cited as the informant.  Also, the information is only as good as the willingness of the physician, coroner, undertaker, or registrar to go that "extra mile" in filling out a rather routine form to suit the requirements of law at the time.  The concerns of genealogists, family historians, or other researchers were not uppermost in the minds of those involved in recording and filing a death certificate, however unfortunate that fact is today.

To order a certified copy of any death record you may contact the Office of Vital Statistics in Frankfort, Kentucky, which maintains a record of all Kentucky death certificates from 1911 to the present.  The Office of Vital Statistics is the only agency or facility through which to obtain a certified death certificate and their website offers detailed information about the requirements which need to be fulfilled in order obtain any death certificate of a person who died 1911 or later years.

The following links will take you to images of photocopies of actual Kentucky death certificates.  Included is a death certificate from 1911, the first year death certificates recorded by the Kentucky's Bureau of Vital Statistics, as well as images from each of the following years, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, to represent each decade and to demonstrate any changes in the information collected over the period of each decade.  An image of a 1952 Kentucky death certificate is also included, but 1954 is the most recent year for which death certificates are available to the public in non-certified form.

• 1911

• 1920

• 1930

• 1940

• 1950

• 1952

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Research Techniques To Use With Kentucky Death Certificates

Besides the discovery of personal details of family members or research subjects already known to be of interest to you, such as the names of parents, spouses, or other relations, the death certificates of others who share the same surname may help to uncover as-yet-unknown family members to add to your family tree.

What do I mean?  Well, for instance, in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries families often stayed within the bounds of one county for more than several generations.  One research technique I have tried on my own in using Kentucky death certificates, is to copy death the certificates of those who lived and/or died in the same county in Kentucky to see what information may be gleaned from their death certificates.  Death certificates of other people who share the same surname as the family you are researching can help to determine if others of the same surname are related.

I used this technique with all of the people with the surname of "Million" & "McNees" who died in Harrison County, Kentucky, and now I have a nifty little database of Million & McNees family records to add to other records I have of those Harrison County, Kentucky families.  It turns out that ALL of those individuals named Million WERE RELATED & ALMOST ALL McNeeses in Harrison County WERE RELATED, BUT this may NOT ALWAYS turn out SO, depending on how common the surname is or the size of the overall population of the community or county in which you are interested.

The following is a list of research approaches I have devised in researching people who share the same surname and who died within the same county, or who were residents of that county at the time of their death.

One approach would be to COPY ALL those death certificates from 1911 thru 1952 for individuals WHO SHARE THE SAME SURNAME in one county of Kentucky.

Another approach, IN ORDER TO MINIMIZE COSTS, would be to COPY ONLY MALES who share the same surname, as most of the females listed who share the surname within the county would probably have been married and also born into families of a different surname.  Kentucky death certificates often record the names of surviving or deceased spouses, so if you should find yourself in need of the death certificate of a female spouse, you could always request death certificates later for the individual females, once you can prove their relationship(s).

To FURTHER STRETCH THE DOLLAR, you might want to ELIMINATE THOSE UNDER A CERTAIN AGE whichever of the two approaches you use above, for the younger members who share the surname might be relative newcomers to the community or county, and might not be a part of an older, established family of the same surname in that place.  Also, some may have, unfortunately, died too young to have much family information of use to be recorded on their death certificates.  You might want to restrict a search to those who were seventy (70) or older, for example.

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A New Way

of Doing Things

Published under the title of "Vital Statistics to be Collected in Accordance with New Law" the following article was appeared in a local county newspaper on December 2, 1910, the month before Kentucky's Bureau of Vital Statistics Law was to be implemented for the first time, and describes the "how & why" of the new law and its importance to Kentuckians.

     "Bowling Green, Ky.—Active preparations are being made here for the operation of the Bureau of Vital Statistics law, which goes in effect Jan. 1, 1911.  This law provides for the reporting and recording of all births and deaths and the collection of morbidity  statistics.  It is a department of the State Board of Health and is one far-reaching in its importance to the welfare and lives of the people of Kentucky.

     "Kentucky’s Bureau will be a combination of the best features of similar bureaus in other states with some suggestions of the Census Department added.

     "Under this law, before a body is buried, the undertaker must procure a burial or removal permit, which shall be issued only by the Local Registrar, who will be placed at convenient localities.  This permit can be secured only when a certificate of death has been filed out by the physician, and in the event the person has died of an infectious or communicable disease, smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, scarlet fever, erysipelas, before a burial permit is issued the body must be so prepared for burial that there is no danger of a spread of the disease in the community.  This not only safeguards the public, but by means of these reports of deaths coming in from all over the state, properly tabulated and classified, the State Board of Health is able to learn the infected districts and spots that need cleaning up.  Through its sanitary inspectors and engineer, the cause of such prevalence of disease is learned and proper regulations enforced as will stop this needless slaughter of the citizens of the Commonwealth.

     "The entire force of the bureau and State Board of health is engaged in appointing suitable men at distances of a few miles, over the entire state.  These are the Local Registrars, who not only will report births and deaths, but arrangements are being perfected so that they will report the cases of infections and dangerous diseases that occur in their district and which do not necessarily die.  When this system is in operation Kentucky will be on an equal footing for procuring these vital facts as the state of Pennsylvania, which spends the sum of $3,000,000,000 [sic] each year for health work.

     "The Voting Precinct is being used as the unit for the territory each Local Registrar will cover in his reports.  When two or more units can be combined to advantage, resulting in no inconvenience to the people, this arrangement is made.  Already hundreds of acceptances have been received from men all over the state and include bankers, lawyers, teachers, farmers, clerks[,] and in nearly all instances, people who are interested in promoting public health work.  It is mainly the work of sending the proper blanks and instructions that will occupy the time till the operation of the law on January 1, 1911."

Records@HarrisonCountyKy.US