Series 81448

OFFICE OF VITAL RECORDS & STATISTICS [1266]

DEATH CERTIFICATES, 1904-[ongoing]

DESCRIPTION: The Utah Office of Vital Records and Statistics began issuing death certificates in 1904. A death certificate is the permanent legal record of an individual's death. Each death certificate includes the decedent's full name, date of death, county where death occurred, decedent's race and gender, place and date of birth, marital status, occupation, permanent residence, place and date of burial, time of death, chief cause and contributory factors of death, and if applicable, where illness was contracted and duration of illness. Death certificates also include the names and birthplaces of parents. After 1919 death certificates indicated whether an autopsy had been performed and provided immediate surgical history prior to death. After 1935 state law required the inclusion of information about violent deaths, including accidents, homicides, and suicides. Certificates indicate whether death occurred at home, in a public place, or in the workplace. In 1940 the certificates began including Social Security numbers and information about the decedent's veteran status. Prior to 1910 permits relating to the transport of corpses were included with death certificates.

A Utah law requiring the registration of all deaths (and births) within the state (Laws of Utah, 1905, chapter 120) followed the guidelines of the U.S. Census Bureau in an effort to maintain uniform and accurate registration of all deaths nationwide. As a permanent legal record, the certificate is very important to the decedent's family. Death certificates provide documentation which is used in applying for insurance benefits, settling pension claims, and transferring title of real and personal property. Statistical data from death certificates helps to identify public health problems and measure the results of programs established to alleviate these problems. Certificates are also legally required to obtain a burial permit and for transport outside of the registration district.

Certificate forms are revised periodically to ensure that the data collected relate to current and future needs. In the revision process, each information field is evaluated thoroughly for its registration, legal, statistical, medical, and research value.

ARRANGEMENT: Death certificates are arranged chronologically by year, alphabetically by county, thereunder chronologically by date. Deaths on the same date and in the same county are not consistently arranged in any order. From 1904 to 1910 certificates were filed in both the Utah county where death occurred and the county of burial.

RELATED RECORDS: Series 20842, DEATH CERTIFICATES ELECTRONIC INDEX, and Series 81440, DEATH CERTIFICATES PHONETIC INDEX, are name indexes to death certificates included in this series. MILITARY DEATH CERTIFICATES, series 3769, include death certificates for United States military personnel killed during World War II and the Korean War, and whose bodies were returned to Utah for burial. These certificates are of the same format, but are not included in this series.

FINDING AIDS: Series 20842, DEATH CERTIFICATES ELECTRONIC INDEX, allows the researcher to locate individual death certificates by the decedent's name or death date. The index to years with unrestricted access is available in the Archives Research Center. The index was made available online in 2005. Series 81440, DEATH CERTIFICATES PHONETIC INDEX, covering the years 1904-1934, is also a name index, but the decedent's name is indexed according to the Soundex Coding System.

ACCESS RESTRICTIONS: The Inspection of Vital Records Act (HB 84), which passed in May 1998, made historic death records available to the public fifty years after the date of death. Previously, only authorized persons had access to these records. The Office of Vital Records and Statistics began transferring custody of historic death certificates (1904-1947) to the Utah State Archives in July 1998. Each year in January a new lot of death certificates is made available for public access. Birth records remain restricted to authorized persons until one hundred years after the date of birth.

PROCESSING NOTE: Utah death certificates were microfilmed in 1973 and archivally processed by M. Call in September 1998. Subsequent updates were done by M. Call, Rosemary Cundiff, and W. Glen Fairclough, Jr. In 2001, The Genealogical Society of Utah re-microfilmed death certificates for 1904-1951. This series is updated annually as a new set of death certificates becomes accessible to the public.

PREFERRED CITATION: Cite the Utah State Archives and Records Service, the creating agency name, the series title, and the series number.

CONTAINER LIST

View full container list (829K)