TSGS Cruiser Blog

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

NAVIGATING ALONG the RIVER -
Research Tips

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I spent about 20 hours in St. Mary's Hospital Sunday evening through half of Monday... I had chest pains. It was discovered that it was not my heart (I had a heart attack in 1992). My diabetes was really the culprit with my sugar reading being consistently very high. I am doing well, now. I mention this because it reminded me of when I had my heart attack and while there, with the doctor's permission, I judged the Warrick County 4-H Genealogy Project Notebooks for the County 4-H Fair in my hospital room while my heart was being monitored.

When I give genealogy workshops to 4-H'ers, I point out that birth & death certificates are issued in the county that the event occurred, not necessarily where they lived. For example, many from Warrick County should suspect that missing vital records (birth or death) might be found in Vanderburgh County where there have been at least 3 hospitals that these events might have happened.


Now, Warrick County has a hospital in Boonville. Even with the fact that there is a hospital in the county where your ancestor lived, the family might prefer another hospital in a nearby county. St. Mary's Hospital is Catholic based and might attract Catholics from counties that may have another hospital. Evansville's St. Mary's and Deaconess Hospitals are large and might be used at the doctor's request or because of the ability to perform certain procedures that smaller facilities can not.

The tip is to look for these types of records (if not found in county of residence) in nearby counties with hospitals.

- submitted by JGWest

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