Pennsylvania Death Certificates 1906-1963 Now Online

Ancestry has been working with the Pennsylvania State Archives to digitize Pennsylvania death certificates and put them online. Scanned death certificates covering 1906-1963 are available now (fee required). See:

Online Pennsylvania Death Certificates, Indexes and Records

Ancestry is has now completed the database to 1963...

1925-1944 -- now available (added June 24, 2014)
1945-1963 -- now available (added October 24, 2014)

If you are a resident of Pennsylvania you may be able to access these Pennsylvania death certificates for free. See: Ancestry.com Pennsylvania for more information.

This article was updated on October 24, 2014.

Catholic Cemeteries with Online Burial Databases in the US

Roman Catholic Cemeteries with Burial Databases
Among the many items listed at the Online Death Indexes website you can find links for Catholic Cemeteries with burial searches in the following places...

Arizona: Diocese of Phoenix Cemeteries
California: Orange County Catholic Cemeteries, and Holy Cross Cemetery in San Mateo County
Colorado: Diocese of Colorado Springs - Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery Burials (listed under Elbert County)
Delaware: Diocese of Wilmington (encompasses all of Delaware and 9 counties of the Eastern Shore of Maryland (listed under New Castle County, Delaware)
Florida: Palm Beach
Georgia: Archdiocese of Atlanta Cemeteries (Fulton County)
Illinois: Jackson County: St. Andrew Catholic Cemetery Burials
Indina Allen County: Fort Wayne Catholic Cemetery
Maine: Portland (Cumberland County)
Maryland: St. Joseph's and St. Mary's Catholic Cemeteries; New Cathedral Catholic Cemetery (all 3 in Baltimore)
Michigan: Mt. Elliott Cemetery Association (Detroit area)
Minnesota: Saint Vincent de Paul Cemetery Burials (Hennepin County)
Missouri: Archdiocese of St. Louis; and Catholic Cemetery Burials in Iron, St. Francois and Ste. Genevieve Counties
Nebraska: Omaha (Douglas County)
New Jersey: Newark (Essex County)
New Mexico: Archdiocese of Santa Fe Catholic Cemetery Association Burials Database
New York:

• Brooklyn And Queens: Diocese of Brooklyn Catholic Cemeteries (includes burial indexes for cemeteries in Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau County)
• Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester, Ascension Garden in Henrietta, and St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Clarkson (listed under Monroe County)

North Dakota: Catholic Diocese of Bismarck: St. Mary's Cemetery Burials (listed under Burleigh County)
Ohio: Cincinnati (Hamilton County), Cleveland Diocese (Cuyahoga County) and Dayton (Montgomery County)
Oklahoma Resurrection Memorial Cemetery in Oklahoma City
Oregon: Eugene and Portland (listed under Multnomah County)
Pennsylvania: Diocese of Pittsburgh Catholic Cemeteries (listed under Allegheny County)
Rhode Island: Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence
Tennessee: Calvary Cemetery Burials - in Nashville (listed under Davidson County)
Texas: Catholic Cemeteries of the Victoria Diocese (several counties in South Texas; listed under Victoria County)
Washington: Archdiocese of Seattle (King County)
Wisconsin: Archdiocese of Milwaukee
Wyoming: Mount Olivet Cemetery in Cheyenne (Laramie County)

You can find links to the above databases at the Online Death Indexes website:

Online Death Records Indexes, Obituay Indexes and Cemetery Burials

Click on the appropriate state, then scroll down to the city or county as listed above.

Even if a Catholic Cemetery doesn't have an online burials search you may still be able to contact the cemetery for information (sometimes a fee may be required). Try using Google to see if there is a website for the Catholic cemetery, diocese or archdiocese you need.

This article was updated on 18 January 2023

Connecticut Cemetery, Obituary and Death Records Indexes - New Additions

Links to the items listed below were recently added to: Online Connecticut Death Records Indexes, Obituaries and Cemeteries

Connecticut Death Indexes - Newest Additions
 - Fairfield County: Fairfield Citizen News Obituaries Index 1982-2006 (from the Fairfield Public Library; some years missing)
 - Fairfield County: Greenwich Publications Index (includes obituaries from February 1983 to present)
 - Fairfield County: Stamford Obituary Index (includes the Stamford Advocate 1843-present and other area newspapers for earlier years)
 - Fairfield County: Westport Library Obituaries Index
 - Fairfield County: Pine Island Cemetery and Mill Hill Burying Ground Burials (Norwalk, Connecticut)
 
 - Hartford County: Wethersfield Ancient Burying Ground and Village Cemetery (map and index of burials)
 - Hartford County: Vital Records of Simsbury, Connecticut (includes indexes for burials in 3 cemeteries, death notices, probate notices and other items)
 
 - Litchfield County: New Hartford Burial Records
 
 - New Haven County: Beacon Falls Death Records Index and Cemetery Index

Online Death Records, Indexes, Obituaries and Cemeteries - Latest Additions and Updates

The Online Death Indexes and Records website has been updated with links to the following items...

Arizona
- Arizona Death Records Index 1844-1963 & Birth Index 1855-1938 (update: year 1963 added to the death index; year 1938 added to the birth index)

Arkansas
- Saline County Library Obituaries Index

California
- Alameda County: Berkeley Daily Gazette Obituary Index (for assorted years 1894-1979)
- Alameda County: Tri-Valley Newspapers Index of Obituaries 1874-2004 (Livermore area)
- Amador County Cemeteries

Connecticut
- See: Recently Added Connecticut Cemetery, Obituary and Death Records Indexes

Delaware
- Delaware Genealogy Collections Gateway: Death and Probate Records Indexes (includes indexes for death registers, coroner records, probate records and more)
- New Castle County Wills Search

Georgia
- Hall County: Alta Vista Cemetery Burials (Gainesville, Georgia)

Illinois
- Kane County Genealogy Indexes (for Birth Certificates 75 years or older; Marriage Licenses 50 years or older; and Death Certificates 20 years or older; requires free registration; copies of the records can be ordered online for a fee.)
- Lake County Genealogical Records Index (indexes birth, marriage and death records prior to January 1, 1916)

Kansas
- Phillips County: Fairview Cemetery Records (Phillipsburg, Kansas)
- Shawnee County: Mount Auburn Cemetery Burials (Topeka, Kansas)

Kentucky
- Boyle County Genealogy and Vital Records Indexes (includes indexes for deaths, obituaries, cemeteries, marriages and more; also has some genealogy indexes for Casey County)

Massachusetts
- Hampden County: Springfield Vital Records, 1638-1887 from FamilySearch
- Worcester County: Worcester City Death Certificates Search 1978-present

Michigan
- Kent County: Burials in 8 Grand Rapids City Cemeteries
- Ottawa County: Pilgrim Home Cemetery and Graafschap Cemetery Burials (Holland, Michigan; the city of Holland is in Ottawa and Allegan Counties)

Minnesota
- Wilkin County Historical Society Obituaries Index

Mississippi
- Alcorn County Cemeteries
- Prentiss County Obituaries and Cemeteries
- Tishomingo County: Cutshall Funeral Home Records (Iuka, Mississippi); for assorted years 1929-1990

Missouri
- Missouri Death Certificates Index and Images 1910-1963 (update: year 1963 added)

Nebraska
- Douglas County: Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Omaha Genealogy Lookup

New Jersey
- New Jersey Death Records Index, June 1878-June 1890 (update: more years added)

New York
- New York State Genealogical Research Death Index 1957-1963; does not include New York City (update: year 1963 added)
- Monroe County: Holy Sepulchre Cemetery Burials (in Rochester, New York) and Ascension Garden Burials (in Henrietta, New York)

North Carolina
- North Carolina WPA Cemetery Survey Records - Tombstone Transcription Project

Ohio
- Ohio Obituaries Index 1810s-recent from the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center (update: several more counties added)
- Ashtabula County Genealogical Society Gravestone Photos Project
- Preble County: Mound Hill Cemetery Burials (Eaton, Ohio)

Pennsylvania
- Pennsylvania Death Records Indexes 1906-1963 (update: year 1963 added)
- Bucks County Genealogical Society Database (includes births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials)
- Montgomery County and Bucks County: Mennonite Heritage Center Cemetery Database (has nearly 86,000 burial records from 125 cemeteries)

South Carolina
- South Carolina Death Index 1915-1963 (update: year 1963 added)

Texas
- Bexar County: San Antonio Death Records Index, 1873-1926, and Birth Records Index, 1896-1936 (includes scanned copies of the birth and death indexes)

Wisconsin
- Richland County Cemeteries (also has Richland Observer Obituary Index 1970 to recent)
- Richland County: Richland Center Cemetery and Bowen Cemetery Burials (Richland Center, Wisconsin)

This is a list of the most recent additions. There are links for many more death records indexes at: Online Searchable Death Records Indexes and Obituaries

Online Death Records, Indexes and Obituaries - Latest Additions and Updates

The Online Death Indexes and Records website has been updated with links to the following items...

California
 - Los Angeles County: Pasadena News Index (includes obituaries; most entries are from June 1996 to recent, but there is some earlier coverage)
 - San Bernardino County: Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery Burials (City of Redlands)
 - Ventura County: St. Mary's Cemetery Records (Ventura)

Connecticut
 - Fairfield County: Wilton Cemeteries
 - New London Vital Records and Cemetery Indexes

Georgia
 - Muscogee County: Columbus Consolidated Government Public Services Department Cemetery Records (for Linwood, Riverdale, Porterdale and East Porterdale Cemeteries)
 - Muscogee County: Historic Linwood Cemetery Burials (Columbus, Georgia)

Illinois
 - DuPage County: Bronswood Cemetery Burial Index (Oak Brook, Illinois)

Indiana
 - Allen County Indiana Cemetery Project
 - Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana: Genealogy Records (includes indexes for cemeteries, funerals, probate records, vital records and more)
 - Clark County: Walnut Ridge Cemetery Burials (Jeffersonville, Indiana)
 - Jefferson County Public Library History Rescue Project - Genealogy Databases (includes indexes for deaths, Madison Courier Obituaries, cemeteries and more)
 - Howard County Cemeteries, and Kokomo Tribune Obituary Index, 1894 and 1915-2013 (update: more years added to the obituary index)
 - Miami County: Peru Obituaries Index (for assorted years beginning with 1975)

Iowa
 - Johnson County: Oakland Cemetery Burials (in Iowa City)
 - Madison County Genealogy Indexes (includes a death index 1880-1919, obituaries, over 28,000 cemetery burials, indexes for probate records, and more)
 - Mitchell County Genealogy Indexes (includes burial notices, cemetery burials and other items)

Kansas
 - Grant County Cemetery District Burials
 - Harvey County Genealogical Database (includes portraits, headstone photos, obituaries, news articles and biographical information submitted by Harvey County Genealogical Society members)
 - Harvey County: City of Newton Cemetery Burials (for Greenwood and Restlawn Cemeteries)
 - Lincoln County Obituary Index 1873-2012 (update: more years added)
 - McPherson County Genealogy Indexes (includes indexes for births, marriages, deaths, obituaries and other items)

Kentucky
 - Lincoln County Cemeteries
 - McCracken County: Oak Grove Cemetery Burials (Paducah, KY)

Massachusetts
 - Essex County: Town of North Andover Old Burial Ground Database
 - Middlesex County: Lincoln Public Library Obituary Database
 - Plymouth County: Cemetery Records from the Town of Carver

Michigan
 - Kalamazoo County: Riverside Cemetery Burials (in Kalamazoo, Michigan)
 - Oakland County Historical Resources (includes some death notices, obituaries and cemetery burials)

Missouri
 - Missouri Coroner's Inquest Database (historical) (update: more counties added)
 - Audrain County Cemeteries
 - Boone County Probate Indexes 1819-1981
 - Ozark County Cemeteries
 - St. Louis City Wills Index, 1877-1925 (update: more years added); See: Online St. Louis, Missouri Death Records, Indexes & Obituaries

Montana
 - Missoula County Public Library Vital Records Index (from early newspapers); also has a newspaper index (1970s to recent)

New Hampshire
 - New Hampshire Death Certificates, 1938-1959 from FamilySearch (images only, not indexed)

New Jersey
 - New Jersey Death Records Index, June 1878-June 1890 (update: more years added)

New York
 - Albany County: State Street Burial Grounds Index, Albany, New York
 - Queens: Fresh Pond Crematory and Columbarium Interment Index (Middle Village, Queens, Long Island, New York); See: Online New York City Death Records Indexes and Obituaries
 - Suffolk County: Brookhaven Cemetery Burials (also has an index for Brentwood Cemetery)
 - Yates County: Penn Yan Democrat Births, Marriages and Deaths Index 1899-1939

North Carolina
 - Randolph County: Asheboro Courier and Courier-Tribune Newspapers Obituaries Index 1903-1995 (update: more years added)

Ohio
 - Mahoning County: Tod Homestead Cemetery Burials (City of Youngstown)

Pennsylvania
 - Allegheny County: Mt. Vernon Cemetery Burials (McKeesport, Pennsylvania)
 - Elk County Cemeteries

Rhode Island
 - Providence County: Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence Cemetery Burials for St. Ann Cemetery (Cranston), Gate of Heaven Cemetery (East Providence), St. Francis Cemetery (Pawtucket) and Mt. St. Mary Cemetery (East Providence)

South Carolina
 - South Carolina Death Index 1915-1962 (update: year 1962 added)
 - South Carolina State Hospital Cemetery Records
 - Greenville News Obituary Index 1910-current (update: more years added)
 - York County Library News and Obituary Index

Virginia
 - New River Notes: Genealogy Resources for the Upper New River Valley of North Carolina and Virginia (for counties in Southwestern Virginia and Northwestern North Carolina; includes cemetery burials and other items)

Washington
 - Stevens County: Northeast Washington Genealogical Society Cemetery Indexes (includes three cemeteries in Colville, Washington)

Wisconsin
 - Wisconsin Death Records Index, 1867-1907 from FamilySearch
 - Waupaca County: Lakeside Memorial Park Cemetery Database

This is a list of the most recent additions. There are links for many more death records indexes at: Online Searchable Death Records Indexes and Obituaries

Celebrating 10 Years of the Online Death Indexes Website

This is the story of how a small list of online death indexes became a website...

My grandfather is missing. He's been missing since 1948, years before I was born. When I first started doing genealogy, finding what happened to him became a priority. In the late 1990s, when he would have been in his mid-90s and likely deceased, I began looking for online death indexes to see if I could find him. There weren't many death indexes on the Internet then. The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) was online, but he's not listed there. I had already checked it numerous times on microfiche at LDS Family History Centers. So I started looking for other death indexes. I believe the first full state index to go online was the Kentucky death index (1911-1992), provided by the University of Kentucky. At the time I wondered who else would put up death indexes. I was hoping for a lot them.

As I went along I made a list of the death indexes I had searched and saved this as a text file on my computer. In June 2000 I converted the list to HTML and added it as a single webpage to my German Roots genealogy website, which first went online in 1998. It quickly became the most popular webpage on the site. It seems a lot of living people are looking for dead people.

The original webpage had about a dozen links to death indexes. By late 2000 Rootsweb had put up death indexes for California, Maine and Texas (plus Kentucky). Michigan and Virginia had historical indexes. I also had links to the SSDI, Find-A-Grave and other resources. And I kept looking for more.

By 2003 the original death indexes webpage was getting really long so I divided it into two pages: Arizona to Mississippi and Missouri to Wyoming. I soon realized I would probably need three pages, then four, so why not fifty? So I decided to develop what was once a small text file of online death indexes into an entire website. I set up deathindexes.com in November of 2003 and made a separate webpage for each state. Then two people emailed me asking for a District of Columbia page, so that got added too. Since then I've gotten a lot of email comments, suggestions for additions, and encouragement from people who use the website, which is nice. I also seek out more death indexes as I work on various genealogy projects. And sometimes I just go bounding around looking for them. I use the death indexes website myself all the time. It think it's quite useful :)

The website includes links to death records indexes, newspaper obituaries, cemetery burials and probate records. A few states and some individual counties now have online digitized death certificates that can be downloaded. Links to these are also listed. Updates to the website are posted right here in this blog, which you can subscribe to using a feed reader or by email -- see the subscription options over on the right side or at the end of this post.

I still haven't found my grandfather. I have searched for him in every index listed on the website. Even the earlier ones I know he wouldn't be in. I test and evaluate each link before it gets added to the website. I might as well use him as my guide. This journey began in 1948, before I was born. It began for me in the late 1980s. And it still continues... Do our ancestors, even the ones we never knew, influence us? I think so. Actually I think their influence is huge. Which is probably why we spend so much time looking for them.

You can find the death indexes website at: Online Searchable Death Indexes, Records, Cemetery Burials and Obituaries. This month (November 2013) marks the website's 10th anniversary.