[or-roots] More on death certs and obits

[W. David Samuelsen]

The Healt Dept deliver yearly batch in advance of Jan 1 each year,
so the delivery of 1953 certificates will not be made until later
this year but will not be opened to public until Jan 1, 2004 - AFTER
50 years have already passed.

1903-1906 are spotty for many counties. Grant County is one of worst
- all the way to about 1922. Early ones were filled with comment - 
from newspapers. Huh! Very lazy county health officer.
My families are during that time.

David

> Wordsmith wrote:
> 
> It wasn't until today that I realized that I should have put the dates
> death certificates are available in the state archives. Oregon did not
> start official recording of deaths until 1903. However, compliance was
> spotty for a number of years, particularly (in my experience) with
> stillbirths and infant deaths. I have a number of obituaries for those
> earlier years, between 1903 and about 1920, for which there is no
> death certificate I can locate and is not listed on the Oregon Death
> Index. The archives have death certificates through 1952. The state
> restricts access to death certificates for 50 years. This does not
> mean that the archives gets the death certificates immediately upon a
> change of month or year. It takes a while. I believe the state health
> department sends the death certificates to the archives in a yearly
> batch, although this may not be right.
> 
> Someone suggested I post the following to the list, which I am glad to
> do:
> 
> I do Jackson County lookups in the Medford Mail Tribune, which began
> around 1910, and some looking in the Medford Mail, beginning about
> 1895. There are also the Medford Sun and the Medford Daily Tribune,
> both of which were around 1900-1915 or thereabouts. I would appreciate
> it if folks could limit their requests to one obit once or twice a
> month, as I have lots
> else going on (like teaching 3/4 time at a college and part-time at a
> hospital). Also, many of the older papers didn't list deaths or obits
> for whatever reason (space? cost? editor's quirks?), and hunting
> through those older papers is really time-consuming. Sometimes
> the only place a death is mentioned is in a "neighborhood column"
> where it might say something like, "Mrs. M. T. Kincaid died last
> Sunday and was buried Tuesday. She was a highly respected pioneer lady
> and a good Christian, having raised 12 children." In those cases, I
> really need a pretty accurate date of death. But, I'm glad to do the
> searching on a limited basis.
> 
> The University of Oregon's Knight Library has a tremendous collection
> of Oregon newspapers on microfilm, and some of these are available
> through your local library through Interlibrary Loan. A small fee is
> charged (Jackson County library charges $2) for the loan. Thus, you
> can request a film for a specific area and time period and look at it
> yourself.
> 
> The USGenWeb Oregon Archives are wonderful, and many people have
> contributed a great deal to them. Do check them out, if you haven't
> already. The information varies a great deal from county to county,
> depending on the county coordinator and the volunteers who
> contribute. I have been adding to the USGenWeb archives for Jackson
> County fairly regularly and at present have a little over
> 2,000 articles posted, primarily obits, deaths and births, but
> marriages and other information as well.Here's the URL:
> 
> http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/or/orfiles.htm
> 
> If you have anything you can contribute, you will find the state
> coordinator's name and e-mail on that main page.
> 
> I will be going to Salem around the 28th.
> 
> Elizabeth in Eagle Point
>