Finding Family Using Birth Certificates

I hoped that by finding the marriage certificate of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, I would be able to learn more information. As most of the family lived in Pennsylvania, I was sure that they were married somewhere in this state. This is when the search go to be a bit hairy.

I knew his name and his birth date. I decided to obtain his birth certificate and put it online so that maybe someone else who was looking up the same information would give me some leads. I also decided to search for death certificates for someone by his name in the county where he got married. Once I obtained the marriage certificate, I was able to see where he married, but very little information. I did find out his age, however. I decided to see if there were divorce records on file. As he left the family, I figured that a divorce must have taken place. However, my search for divorce records for both my great grandmother and great grandfather turned up empty handed.

If you are planning on looking up your family history, do not expect to find it right away online. While online sites can easily take you back a few generations, records get more scarce as you go back in time. There are cases where records are destroyed in a fire. Or cases where someone was born in another country. Or cases where the records are lost. By making use of both birth, death and marriage certificates, however, you can find leads that can bring you to other leads so that you can put the puzzle of your family history together.

Do not be surprised to go back and forth between marriage and death certificates. As I said earlier, it is easy to obtain information for people who died after the 1930s through their social security records. But prior to that, it can be difficult. Although records of their death certainly existed, they are not as easy to find as you may think.

Birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce certificates and death certificates are all recorded in the county where the event took place. You may go back and forth between marriage and death certificates, as well as birth certificates, frequently in your search for your family history.

As I could not find a divorce certificate for my great grandfather, I decided to look for a death certificate for someone who died and had his birthday and name. It took me several tries, but finally, I got lucky. He died in Pennsylvania, about the time that my grandfather was around five years old. I knew that he had died because I decided to look up my great-grandmother’s marriage certificate.