Can I get access to the death certificate of someone who died in 1955?

Question

My cousin and I strongly suspects that our grand-father killed our biological grand-mother. I know this sounds crazy but we have many reasons to think so. Nobody in our family even wants to discuss this. Where can I go to consult 50 year old documents?

Answer 1

If you are a relative you can probably get a copy of  the death certificate. Check with the office of Vital statistics, they should have an archive of births, marriages, and deaths. Bring ID you can look at a record for free but a copy will cost you about 15.00

Answer 2

You have to get a death certificate from the county in which the person was presumed dead. So if you know the county or hospital or town then contact them and they can point you in the direction. If you think it was caused by something else then police officers keep files in the case looks like something happened but could not follow up due to lack of leads. That is called a cold file.

Answer 3

Sure, Just go to the bureau of vital stastic in your state,the death cerficate wont help you though ,you need an autopsy report, don't take an assumpation ,however,the judge will go along with the assumpation if its on the autopsy report ,Sorry.

Answer 4

go to the county clerk's website where your grandmother died or was killed - put in your grandfather's name under a criminal search and if he was ever charged with the crime it should be listed.  You might want to try the library and review old newspapers from that era.  Good luck

Answer 5

To order a death certificate, you'll need to know the State and County where your grandmother died, and an approximate date.  Once you have that info, you can order the death certificate either from the county clerk's office, or the State's vital records department.  The following website will give you instructions on how to place an order (scroll down and select the state):

http://www.vitalrec.com/

Answer 6

The County Clerk in the county where she died will have a copy of the death certificate. Once you get the date from it and the cause of death, go to the local library and pull the films for the local newspaper and see how the death was reported. If it was anything other than "natural causes", it should show up on the cause of death. Even before there were death certificates, the log books kept would tell the cause of death. The only exception is if he made it look natural or look like a suicide. But you'll be surprised at how candid the doctors were back then. I've even seen a death certificate where it blatantly said that the woman died from a botched abortion and that her husband was the abortionist. So take a look and see what you find.