Minnesota Death Records before 1908

"Gee, it's just too hard to find death records before 1908 -- that's when the on-line index for Minnesota starts!" The latter part of that statement is true: the Minnesota Historical Society has an on-line searchable site to index the death certificates from the State Department of Health. It's the Minnesota Death Certificate Index.

The first part is only partly true. There are sources that make the location of death records quite easy.

• Recording of deaths began with the establishment and organization of county government within Minnesota. Townships and villages also recorded deaths in some counties. For the major cities in the state (including St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth), records were kept separately from the county records. That is, if a person died in the City of Minneapolis, even though the family lived in Minnetonka or Champlin, the death is more likely to have been recorded in the records for the City (Minneapolis), and not in the Hennepin County records.

  The existence of various vital record registers was documented as part of Minnesota WPA efforts in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Workers in the individual counties visited both churches and government offices to determine what registers existed and for what years. That information was then published. The book for the church vital statistics has been microfilmed and is available through our catalog.

  And, as the Genealogical Society of Utah (Mormons) traveled throughout Minnesota microfilming records, often the early death records were filmed as well. The availability of these records for your county(ies) of interest can be determined through their locality catalog at http://www.familysearch.org.

• Beginning in 1900, the State Health Department asked counties to submit death information, which was transferred to a 3X5 card for filing, organized by year, county, then alphabet. That method continued until 1908, when a duplicate of the death certificate filed in the county was forwarded to the Department. That card file has now been microfilmed and is available to researchers in the Reference Library of the Minnesota History Center. It is also available through interlibrary loan through public libraries.

  Covering the years 1900-1907, these cards include typical information found on death certificates: name, age, date of death, attending physician, location of death, cause of death, etc. There are 62 rolls of microfilm. As with any research, the more information about a death the researcher can bring, the easier the search will be. If you know the year and place of death, it's quick to find the right card!

The cause of death is given as "Fract. arm & leg," with a contributing cause of "Struck by locomotive." Clearly, there will likely be a story in the newspaper about this! The name given on the card (and in the interment records at St. Mary's Cemetery as well) was incorrect as recorded. The record contains an affidavit asking that it be amended, as well as a birth record from a small community in Italy and an official translation. (The translation is not in the .PDF file. Because the images are from microfilm copies, they are less than perfect--sorry!)

It is curious that the death occurred in December 1900, but that the request for correction of the name was not made until May of 1936. Why so much later? What benefit was there from correcting the record? What's your theory?

It's always a good practice to look for every piece of evidence, even if you expect you will find nothing new. You just never know where you will find the village of origin, or some other elusive fact!

© 2002 Park Genealogical Books, Roseville MN

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