Obituary Addiction: Death Index's & Obituaries

As a young person I would tag along my mamae (pronounced ma-may) and papae (pronounced pa-pay) to in-laws, relatives and friends.  My great-grandmother came up from Connecticut to Lewiston, Maine on Blake Street in Lewiston when I was a child and I was overwhelmed at how many people we were related to, most I had no clue who they were and how they were related to me.

My mother’s family were visited less frequently. I went to visit my Aunts and knew my cousins, but I did not know her parents. My maternal (meaning my mother’s side) grandmother died weeks before I was born and my grandfather spent the rest of life secluded into his alcohol as his family split into fragments.

One day my mother pulled out some scrapbooks and showed me photo’s of her side of the family and there was one of my dad’s family. In part of them included obituaries of old people and a few young people. I asked my mom, ‘why do you have these’, and she explained why people do obituaries. After this I started collecting obituaries.

Obituaries are considered reliable sources of information and can provide invaluable clues on family.  The information in an obituary will give you information about their name, parents, birth, education, hobbies/work, club affiliations, and those that are related to them. I have in the past used an obituary to obtain information to solve a block or come up with a list of people who are living today. This is a great option for people who lived in the past or live in another state or country.

To find an older obituary before the internet days you will have to dig around some. If you live in the area of the person who died there are some options. Local libraries have microfilm of the newspapers. You can look them up if you know roughly the day they died. In Lewiston, Maine the local library has microfilmed the Lewiston Sun/Lewiston Sun Journal since the 1800’s and the newspaper company also had a librarian to archive names, and other topics in a card catalogue.

To find a list of newspapers in an area in your state or another state in North America I would suggest starting here:

 http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/titles/

Case Example:  I am looking for newspapers that a relative may have an obituary.  I know my maternal great grandmother’s name was Germaine Cailler. I do not know when or where she died.

Step 1: Maine Marriage Archives
 Assuming she was married, find whom she married.  I open my browser to the Maine Marriage Archives located here:  http://portal.maine.gov/marriage/archdev.marriage_archive.search_form . Under the brides name I type in “Cailler Germaine’ and click the submit button.

This search engine does last name with first name after it. You can add the area if you know it, but if you do not its ok.  To find out if another state has a similar site do a search on Google or another search engine for the state and marriage archives (such as New York Marriage Archives).  The search gives me the information that she married Luc Goyette on August 19, 1929 and they were both from Lewiston, Maine at the time.

Step 2: Social Security Death Index (SSDI)
If the person you are looking for lived after the creation of social security then they may have collected benefits while they were alive.  The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is an index for people who have died after 1963. In your browser go to this address:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://www.familysearch.org/searchapi/search/collection/1202535 .

The reason for finding out Germaine’s marriage is because their death records are in their married name and not the maiden name. The search for ‘Germaine Goyette’ gives me some clues about her. As you are able see in the photo, Germaine was born May 19, 1908 and died July 1983. Her social security number is listed and tells us that it was issued from the state of Maine and that her last known residence was Lewiston, Maine. The last known residence is usually where the check was sent to.

 

Step 2: Maine Death Index
Various states have death indexes similar to the marriage archives from Step 1.  The results from the SSDI told me that Germaine died in July 1983. I would like a more precise date before I head off to look for her obituary.  Open the browser and go to the Maine Death Index located here:

http://portal.maine.gov/death/archdev.death_archive.search_form

 
Type in last name ‘Goyette’ and first name ‘Germaine’ and click on submit. Looking at the results provided from the search tells me that Germaine Goyette died July 9, 1983 at 75 years old and lived in Lewiston, Maine. It also provides the death certificate number if I would like to order a copy that will have other information on it. This will be a discussion next time on Maine State Archive Records.

 

Step 3: Newspaper Archives List
Currently from a few searches I have shown determine that I need to look for an obituary in a newspaper in Lewiston, Maine the week of July 9^th, 1983. Obituaries are never published the day of a death but will usually be in the local newspaper a few days after the death, sometimes up to a week.

To find the newspapers in a particular area and time you can go to the local libraries. Sometimes there may have been several newspapers or one that has gone out of print before the 1950’s. The US Library of Congress has an index located here: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/titles/ . Once you are on this page click the state and select Maine.

The next column list counties, to find a county of a city that you are unaware of the US Census Bureau has a search engine located here: http://quickfacts.census.gov/cgi-bin/qfd/lookup where you can enter Lewiston and it will tell you what the county is; in this example it tell us that the county for Lewiston is Androscoggin. Going back to the Newspaper index click on Androscoggin and under the city select Lewiston as seen on the photo and click on the search. The results page shows you all the newspaper for Lewiston, Maine and information about their dates of operation, which places have a copy of the newspaper microfilm (like the state archives building or local colleges). In addition your local libraries and state offices may have a copy of them locally. The information I found on the newspaper for Lewiston, Maine will come in handy for other relatives that died before 1960.

Step 4: Locating the Obituary

I have determined that I need to look at the Lewiston Sun Journal, so I head to the Lewiston Public Library and look at the newspaper archives and locate her obituary. You have a few options, you can click print copy for a price or you can handwrite the information down. I believe that having an actual copy can be helpful. After it is printed you can convert it digitally and save to your computer if you choose to.

Own Your Own:
Try a search on your own with the same steps listed above.  Over the next few weeks we will explore more on the information gathering process from a person’s death and information it can provide in writing a narrative of the person along with other areas of information.

For the process I will be using my maternal great-grandparents: Germaine Cailler and Lucien Goyette and paternal great-grandparents: Emmanuel Cote & Malvina Lizotte. We will be exploring these two family lines and gather information to start writing about them over the summer.

For beginners in the research process I would suggest starting with a grandparent or great grandparent. After you become more familiar with the search process and locating the information you can expand on older documents. If you have suggestions of other sites that may be useful for others post a comment or share about your research.