I also know that you can order vital records online, for a fee, from 1921 on.
The question this left me with is: how/where can one access records from 1916-1920?
I recently discovered that you can find them-- if you already know the date of the event-- on FamilySearch.org. Yep, I've been going to this site for over a year, and just now discovered this.
The thing is, the records aren't archived, so you're not going to find them by doing a basic name/date search. And you will have to already know the place and date of the event; I'm going to find the death record of my great-great grandfather Thomas RYAN, who passed on 9 August 1916.
1. You first go to FamilySearch.org's home page, and then scroll down to the "Browse by location" links. Click on "United States", then "Massachusetts."
2. Click on "Massachusetts" from the list of states. Then choose the last listed database, titled "Massachusetts State Vital Records, 1841-1920."
3. Click on "Browse through images." Select from births, deaths, or marriages. Here, I'm looking for a death, so that's what I'll click on.
4. Thomas died in Boston, so using the scroll bar on the right (easy to not notice it), I'll scroll down till I come to "Deaths 1916" for Boston-- here are two volumes. By digging around, I realized that they were in chronological order, by day, for the most part, so I had to do some searching to get to August.
5. Voila, I found Thomas's death record on page 152 of the second volume of 1916 deaths for Boston, and saved it to my puter.
Discovered much from this record: his exact birthdate (25 July 1831), his parents' names, including his mother's maiden name (I could now change "Johanna Unknown" in my tree to "Johanna LYNCH"), and his cause of death: myocarditis and mitral regurgitation (5+ years), and secondary cause/contributing factor was heat exhaustion (2 days).
Thank you for reminding me of these resources. I'm not sure I knew of the 1911-1915 Mass VRs on AmericanAncestors.org; if I knew of them before, I'd forgotten about them. I'm taking advantage of this database this afternoon!
ReplyDeleteBoy, there are a lot of resources out there for those of us lucky enough to have New England Ancestors!
Elizabeth, I'm so glad this was a help to you. I didn't even know it was there, and wanted to spread the word.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, thank God that New England records are so thorough and well kept!
Karen,
ReplyDeleteYou just made my day! I was searching for 1916 MA death record not available yet anywhere on line and no index to search. Had a clue the 3rd Gr. Grandmother died Sept. 20, 1916 but no source record. After reading your post here I found her last census in Saugus (1910) so started there with no luck, then searched Malden - a place she had been on other census - still no luck then tried Boston just for the heck of it and still did not find her. I then went back to Ancestry looking at US City Directories to see if she was somewhere else closer to 1916 and saw a person by her name living in Leominster so I tried searching that Volume and I found it!! Thanks!
Debbie H
Moscow Mills, MO
Debbie, thank you for your comment-- you made MY day by letting me know this post led you to your 3x great-grandmother's record!
ReplyDelete