How do you estimate a death date given only a birth date & place and a 1940 Census record that showed the individual was alive?
Usually, when you can't find a death certificate, you can figure out the decade in which an died based on when they stopped showing up in later Census records. Unfortunately, if said individual is recorded in the 1940 Census, then you can only say that he died after the 1940 Census, since the 1950 Census won't be released until 2022.
Please do not ask about any specific information regarding the ancestor in question. Just give me some general guidelines that genealogists can use to narrow their searches for death dates.
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Re: How do you estimate a death date given only a birth date & place and a 1940 Census record that showed the individual was alive?
See how long the person continued to be listed in the directories.
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Re: How do you estimate a death date given only a birth date & place and a 1940 Census record that showed the individual was alive?
What directories? Phone books?
What I was looking for was a rough estimate based only on the data I already have. I could not find a death certificate for the individual in question. If I can obtain a rough estimate, that might allow me to shorten the amount of time I or someone else would have to spend looking at obituaries.
For example, suppose this individual was born in the late 1880's in Germany. Further suppose that a person who was born in Germany in the late 1880's and appeared in the 1940's Census could have, on average, expected to live to be 53 years old. Armed with this knowledge, I can assume that this individual died at that age, and start my obituary search by looking at obituaries that were published when this individual was 53 years old.
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Re: How do you estimate a death date given only a birth date & place and a 1940 Census record that showed the individual was alive?
There are many city directories online here at ancestry. See if they appear in any of them. If they do, then you know they were alive at that time.
You can't really estimate any type of death date based on what you have right now. Even though the average life span was shorter, if you take out the infant mortality, the life span once they actually reached adulthood was often quite long.
Since he lived past 1940, try ordering the death certificate, specifying what you do know. Check the particular state's website for the procedure. Most will do a reasonable search for a small fee when you don't know the actual death date. Don't use Vital Check.as they will ask for data you don't have yet.
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Re: How do you estimate a death date given only a birth date & place and a 1940 Census record that showed the individual was alive?
I know it's not what you want to hear, but I'm going to second what Dee said in that you simply cannot estimate a death date based on what you have now. You will have to do further research if you want a better guess. All you can say for certain now is that the death occurred after 1940 and that's that.
I'll also second looking in directories too. I've been surprised at the number of folks I've found in directories here at Ancestry. I'm not sure if they're free or a subscription is required.
Now, if you know for certain (or are fairly certain) that you know where they died, then you have a couple of options:
1.) You can request a death certificate if you are a descendant and if you have their birth name, date and probably where they were born that will give you the definite answer you're looking for, provided the state in question allows those requests. It depends on the state, but you probably will have to pay a little extra for a "research" fee for them to find it by birth date. The only requirement is that you have to have a good idea about where the person died.
2.) You can contact a local newspaper historian with a request on obituaries. Many newspapers have archived that information and made it searchable for themselves upon reader requests. You may have to pay a fee.
I'm sorry it's not more helpful. It's just that estimating death dates is terribly inaccurate and you'll find that most, if not all, were way off. Think about yourself today. How would you estimate your future death date? It depends on your health, where you live for crime and food availability, family medical history and so on. People die in car accidents and from cancer. All those variables do matter. Most of which you won't know about unless you have a wealth of information about the family.
Good luck though in your research!
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Re: How do you estimate a death date given only a birth date & place and a 1940 Census record that showed the individual was alive?
See if you can find a WWII draft registration for him. All men born between 1877 and 1897 were required to file for the draft on April 27, 1942, even though the military didn't draft anyone older than 45. Make sure where he was living in 1940 census has WWII cards in the online database. If you happen to find his card then you know he was alive as of 1942. If you don't find one then you can concentrate on the dates between when the 1940 census was taken and April 27, 1942 to find a death certificate.
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