the photocopy plus the postage for my letter. Sometimes “old school” can be your best friend, too. (And sometimes it's your only friend.) OTHER PAPERWORK DOCUMENT BOTH ONLINE AND OFFLINE •
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Tax Rolls/Records – When looking at tax records, if suddenly one year instead of your ancestor being listed, his widow is listed (and sometimes the title “widow” is used), then obviously he passed away sometime in the previous year, narrowing the time frame for his death a little more. Where to -ind them? Libraries, archives, genealogy and historical societies, courthouses, etc. Again, survey the repositories in your target research state, county, and/or city. Some transcribed and/or abstracted tax lists can be found on USGenWeb.org [ LINK ] under the corresponding county as well as on other sites. However, even if you -ind the information this way, you still need to try to -ind the original tax records if they still exist. I don't trust myself to abstract and/or transcribe information accurately 100 percent of the time. Why would I trust anyone else? You can also use the Family History Library's online catalog to do a “place search” in order to determine if they have what you need on micro-ilm [ LINK ], and Ancestry.com [$$] has some tax lists and indexes as well [ LINK ]. Military Service & Pension Records – Military records can yield many genealogical clues about your ancestor, including information about an ancestor's death. These are located at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and more information concerning obtaining these records can be found here [ LINK ]. In addition, the military pension index cards can have the date of death listed on them as well. Images of these index cards can be found on Footnote.com and Ancestry.com. The example shown here is for Daniel Rook Vaughan's Civil War pension index card found on Footnote.com [ LINK ]. Some military records are available on micro-ilm for rental through the Family History Library. You can use their online catalog to do a “place search” in order to determine if they have what you need on micro-ilm. [ LINK ] •Land Records – Land records are chock full of genealogical data about our ancestors due to the particular requirements in purchasing land from the government. If your ancestor died in the middle of the process, his widow and/or heirs were still allowed to complete
98 Shades MAGAZINE | Memento Mori 2010