This morning as I located yet another death certificate for a relative at the Arizona Genealogy Birth and Death Certificates site I thought to myself, "why don't all agencies digitize and publish their vital records online like Arizona has done?" Imagine my excitement when I read the Ozarks Genealogical Society's article entitled "Missouri Death Certificates Now Online".

According to the article, "over 600 students and volunteers from across the United States and other countries spent 32,810 hours preparing certificates for scanning and entering data into the index." The index, which is linked to the digitized images of the records, can be searched by first name and last name, county, and by year and month. Once a name is selected, a digitized image of the original certificate can be retrieved - at no cost.

If you have Missouri ancestors, this is a valuable new resource. We wrote about it back in April 2006 when the index was first published, but now to have the actual images too! A great day for genealogy!

Click here for the database.

How to search your database for potential Missouri deaths

You can search your Legacy Family Tree database to see if you have any relatives that may appear in this new Missouri database. Follow these instructions:

1. Click on the Search button in the main toolbar, then click on the Detailed Search tab.
2. Add the following criteria and click on Create List: