Apropos of Archives

Last week I was looking in a box of valuable documents that I'll probably never need and while I didn't find what I was looking for, I found two State of Israel bonds that had matured long ago and that I never redeemed. They were both given to me by my Grandmother, one in 1971, the other in 1972. One is in my name, and the other has both me and my grandmother as joint tenants with survival rights. So in order to prove that I'm the survivor, I have to provide a death certificate.

Of course I didn't have it. I suppose my mother (her daughter) or my mother's sister probably did, but they're both long dead, as is my mother's husband at the time she died. I'm an only child so there are no other siblings. I wasn't even sure when she died, or where, whether it was in the nursing home in Maryland where she was when I last saw her alive, or if she went back to her home or my mother's home in Virginia when it was time to go. So I'm not even sure what state she died in.

I called the nursing home and they had no record of her. They only keep records for ten years. So I called the synagogue where she was active since that's where her memorial service was held. I guessed that our family probably bought her a memorial plaque, and sure enough, they did. From that, I got the date of death (April 27 1976). Digital record? The person I talked with said that the person who could look it up in the computer wasn't there, but she just walked out to the chapel, looked on the In Memoriam board, and there it was, cast in bronze. (Analog, you'll note).

A Social Security search showed her last residence as Rockville Maryland, and that's where the nursing home is. They had the month and year, but not the date of death.

Virginia and Maryland were of little help with the death certificate. I could send them money and if they had a record of death, they'd send me a copy of the certificate. Otherwise they'd send me a "record of unsuccessful search."

I suppose I'll take a chance and send Maryland 12 bucks and see if they send me a copy of the death certificate. Without it, the State of Israel gets to keep my grandmother's i$100 nvestment and $80 interest (maybe more, I don't know if it accrues any more interest after the maturity date) of mine.

So the moral of the story is that if you ever think you'll need it (and really, I never thought I'd need my grandmother's death certificate), make sure you know where to find it.

And don't depend entirely on digital storage!

If her death certificate was in the cloud, you would have had your money by now

If her death certificate was in the cloud, you would have had your money by now

Cloud or not, if the office had an on-line search I would have al least known if I could get the death certificate. It's one of those Gum'mint offices that don't want to make it too easy to get a death certificate. Otherwise we'd all be filing claims for our life insurance.

And if it was easier to get a birth certificate, we'd all be running for president.

I don't know exactly how to find it, but that stuff's available; must be public record. My wife uses ancestry.com to research the family roots. Found stuff going back hundreds of years. We have my grandparents birth certificates in England, ships manifests when they came to the States, citizenship papers, marriage license, and both death certificates. I don't know how they get that stuff but if they can find it, I guess your normal bloke can too; if you have the time and patience (I have the time, but not the patience).

I'm sure you know this, but if your grandma had a social security number you could instantly find her data online in the Social Security Death Master file.

Terry D.

I guess she must have had a social security number (I don't know it of course) because using one of those genealogy search sites (that I had to give a credit card to for a 7 day free trial offer which I immediately canceled). I found the place, month and year of her death in a Social Security search. But they didn't have the date of death, nor would that be accepted as an official death certificate.

The genealogy site had a link to get a copy of the death certificate, but there was a $15 uncertainty (that's what they charge to try to find it, unrefundable if they don't find it) and then another $35 for the copy if they can find it. Maryland (which the SS data said is where she died, which is likely as she was in a nursing home there) only charges $12 and for that they'll send a copy of the certificate if they have it. A better deal, I think.