Increasingly many families have the need to have loved ones placed in long-term care facilities. In our family, we are about to cross this bridge, and the question arose if "Auntie" has any Veteran Benefits as her husband served in WWII. Guess who was charged with finding the answer to this question? Why the Family Historian (FH) of course. So, what's the FH to do? Fall back on our training of course; start with what you know, find out what you should know, and know all that is needed to know. Back to "Auntie", on our family website, I have her birth information, and her last husband's name and his obituary. BTW, "Auntie" is my aunt by marriage; the focus of my research for the last two years has been my father's side of the family. The open question is if "Auntie" is eligible for any VA benefits.
Fortunately from a conversation with "Auntie", I had the location of the marriage and the decade. I set out to locate some documentation online. First I went to Family Search (FS) and found the Ohio Death Index for the deceased husband, that indicated he was 1) a veteran, and 2) he was married. I also found on FS an index that listed "Auntie" as a possible relative. I searched on the library edition of Ancestry.com and didn't find much more. I excluded census information on both sites, thinking the government would want more than census information before paying a claim. I also, i did not confirm that a benefit existed to meet "Auntie"s need, as two other nephews said they did. At this point, I was about to seek help from my genealogy network, but luckily I had a previously planned trip the county seat where the wedding was performed within a week. What luck, as this county is a five-hour drive from where I live. When I googled "how to get a marriage certificate from XXXXXXXX county". One of the top three non-sponsored listings was the county clerk's website with a FAQ page explaining exactly how to request a copy of a marriage certificate.
Once I got to town, I called the clerk's office to confirm what was on the webpage FAQ. Yes, these certificates were only $2. When I asked where the office was located, I was told it is right across the street from the Justice Center and across from a well-known hotel. The hotel was well marked, the other buildings weren't, so I got to go through security twice. Once I got to the right office , securing the marriage certificate took less than an hour. Two lessons learned: 1) If you are going to a courthouse dress like you're going to take a flight. 2) Try not to wander around strange cities in 95-degree heat. Big takeaways: 1) not everything is on the Internet, 2) I got six additional data points from one marriage certificate. I'd heard how data-rich marriage certificates can be, but seeing this document really brought this home for me. Identifying/recognizing additional data points is a sign of becoming an intermediate genealogist. I helped "Auntie" build her case for VA benefits and added a new genealogy experience.
Let us know about your experiences of finding information for family members. Also, let us know how we could have done this online.
1929 - 2020 (90 years)