Most of us have used a variety of records to document deaths for our research, but there are many other categories of records beyond the typical ones that might be available.  Please join us on Wednesday, November 5 at 7:00 PM at the OWASA Community Center, 400 Jones Ferry Rd, Carrboro, OR ONLINE via Zoom, to hear Diane L. Richard, winner of the 2025 Helen F. M. Leary Award For Outstanding Contribution of NC Genealogy, present Death Records by a Different Name.  

 

This lecture is not about the records most of us regularly use to document the date and place of death, such as obituaries, cemetery records, probate records, death certificates, Social Security death index data, private correspondence, or bibles.  Instead, it will explore the many other categories of records where deaths might be documented.  Have you considered library circulation records? What about the ledgers of marble workers, woodworkers, or undertakers? There are many unexpected places where we might find death documented. 

 

As we delve into almost 30 so-called substitute records documenting death, we’ll focus on some slightly more common record types that some researchers occasionally pursue, such as poor records, funeral homes, etc., while delving into some less researched and quite unexpected hidden gems.

 

Diane L Richard, MEng & MBA, Mosaic Research and Project Management (MosaicRPM), www.mosaicrpm.com, has been doing genealogy research since 1987, and in 2024, celebrated her 20th anniversary of professionally researching client ancestors while also channeling the “inner teacher” in her by sharing her knowledge via the written and spoken word.  In October 2025 Diane received the newly named Helen F. M. Leary Award for Outstanding Contribution to North Carolina Genealogy, awarded by the North Carolina Genealogical Society.

 

As an international speaker, she has given hundreds of webinars and in-person programs (coast-to-coast and in Canada), conference presentations, workshops, and local meeting programs about the availability and richness of all kinds of records relevant and leverageable by genealogists and the strategies and tips to exploit these records and research tactics most effectively. She has appeared on Who Do You Think You Are? (Bryan Cranston episode).

You can read more details about Diane at https://genwebinars.com/about/