[or-roots] Oregon death certs

[Wordsmith]

I live in the Rogue Valley area and have made a few trips to Salem this
summer to get death certificates; in two trips I amassed nearly 300
certificates. That, plus stopping at my son's house in Corvallis and
allowing him to cook me supper, made the trip worth it. I really enjoy the
drive, the archives staff are very, very helpful, and if I get there early
enough I can even find a place to park.

If you go to the archives and have a long list of death certificates to pull
and copy, may I suggest a way to create a list for the archives staff that
will save them--and you--time? They told me it really helped them a lot. I
created my list using MS Excel, but any word processing program with a table
feature will also work just fine.

I made the following column headings: Archivist, Year of Death, Month, Day,
County, Surname, First Name, Middle/Maiden Name, and Notes. I type in the
information and leave a few blank lines for those death certificates that I
suddenly decide I need but don't have time to fire up the computer and add
them to the list.

The reason is that the death certificates are filed first by year, then by
county, then by month, with certificates in date order within each folder.
The first column is blank so that the staff member, if they wish, can check
off the boxes as they take them off the shelf. Since most of the death
certificates I get are for deaths occurring in Jackson County, when I have
them in other places I put that county in bold so the archivist will see it
and pull the right box.

I hope this idea helps those of you who have a good many certificates to
find and not a lot of time to do it in. In one three-hour period I managed
to pull and copy about 130 of them.

Also, anyone who goes to Portland to visit the Oregon Historical Society
there should know that their galleries will be closed for several months
beginning sometime in November, I believe. For more information, their
website is www.ohs.org.

Elizabeth in the Rogue Valley
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