Source Information

Weant, Kenneth E., comp. St. Clair County, Missouri, U.S., Death Index, 1906-1929 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2003.
Original data: Weant, Kenneth E.. St. Clair County, Missouri 5044 Deaths Reported In and Chronological Index to Selected Articles from the St. Clair County Democrat 4 January 1906 to 25 April 1929. Vol. 2. Colombia, MO, USA: Kenneth E. Weant, 2002.

About St. Clair County, Missouri, U.S., Death Index, 1906-1929

This database is an index to over 5,000 deaths reported in the St. Clair County Democrat newspaper between 4 January 1906 and 25 April 1929. It also serves as a chronological index to selected articles from the newspaper for the same time period. Information listed in this index includes given name, surname, age at time of death or birthdate, death date, and date of newspaper issue.

When many genealogical researchers think of newspapers, they immediately think of obituaries—a natural and understandable connection. The wealth of genealogical and biographical information to be found in an informative obituary certainly makes the effort of searching for one worthwhile. For many of our ancestors and relatives, the obituary is the only "biographical sketch" that was ever devoted to that individual. In addition to names, dates, and places of birth, marriage, and death, the obituary often identifies relationships of the deceased as child, sibling, parent, grandparent, etc., to numerous other individuals. Obituaries may even suggest other documentation of an individual's death—a death certificate in another county because the hospital was located there; church or cemetery records (by identifying the place of burial or the officiating minister); or records of a coroner's inquest because the death was sudden or unexpected. And, of course, the wealth of detail in an informative obituary may open up many research avenues.

The obituary is not the only record of death that can be found in the newspaper. Other possibilities are death or funeral notices, burial permit lists, and death lists. They may not have the immediate payoff of obituaries, but they can provide important documentation of deaths.

Taken from Hansen, James L., "Research in Newspapers" in The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, ed. Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1997).