Tuesday's Tip - Check Out the Missouri Death Index (1968-2015) and Birth Index (1920-2015)

 Reclaim the Records has done it again - they pried loose these records from Missouri to help genealogy researchers with vital records from Missouri.  BRAVO!!  You can read about it in   https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/state/missouri/.

1)  For the Missouri Death Index (1968-2015), there are currently 2,598,472 entries:

The death index provides only the name of the deceased person and the death date because of Missouri state law restrictions.  On the Death Index page, there are search fields for the first - middle - last name and for a death date range.  You can search for Exact name or Sound-alike surnames.  I entered "seaver" and chose "Exact" and received 25 matches:

When I searched for Sound-alike surnames, I received 100 matches and a note that said they were providing only the first hundred matches.

I searched using a * wild card for arn* and sea* and it worked - gave me one Arnold Seaver and a lot of Arnolds.  So it gives results as if each was exact but not both are exact.  Interesting!

2)  For the Missouri Birth Index (1920-2015), there are currently 7,501,974 entries.  

The birth index provides only the name of the child and the birth date because of Missouri state law restrictions.  On the Birth Index page, there are search fields for the first - middle - last name and for a birth date range.  You can search for Exact name or Sound-alike surnames.  I entered "seaver" and chose "Exact" and received 62 matches:

When I search for Sound-alike surnames, I received 100 matches and a note that said they were providing only the first hundred matches.

Not having the parents names in the index makes it difficult to determine family makeup.

3)  Reclaim the Records says they will add death and birth records for the years 2016-2019, so check back often.

Both sites provide links to order birth and/or death certificates, but there are restrictions on who can obtain them.

4)  These records will be useful, especially for persons named in census, city directories, obituaries or news articles.

5)  NOTE:  These records are free to access thanks to Reclaim the Records.  The actual index images are free to download on the Internet Archive as text .csv files  The indexes are in date order by decade (e.g., from 1/1/1970 to 12/31/1979).  But a user can search them when saved on their computer.

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