Search help for the Ohio Online Death Certificate Index (ODCI) database, 1913-1937.

BASIC SEARCH

Input one name in the LAST and/or FIRST NAME search form. Last names can ONLY be 11 characters or less and first names ONLY 7 characters or less (if a name longer than these limits is searched, you will NOT have any records returned. You MUST input only the first 7 or 11 characters). Choose an Index from the pick list (required). Choose a county or "all counties" from the county pick list (required). Select SEARCH. The resulting returned records will be displayed below the search form in groups of 15. View further groups of returned records by choosing "Next 15 Results" found below the initial returned records.

The current database, consisting of over 2 million records, and spanning 1913-1937, will eventually cover the years 1908-1937.

Indices are searchable by the years the original source material was indexed: 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913-1917, 1918-1922, 1923-1927, 1928-1932, 1933-1937. Notice some Indices cover single years, while others are five year spans.

NOTE: The wider the variable chosen, the longer the time needed to return records--choosing "all counties" will usually take longer to process than choosing one county. The maximum number of records that can be returned with one query is 1000.

FORMAT

ODCI records consist of all the fields included in the hardcopy Vital Statistics index-- last name (up to 11 characters), first name (up to 7 characters), optional middle initial, county of death, date of death (mm/dd/yyyy), certificate volume and certificate number. More information may be found in the Death Certificates themselves. Please see About Birth and Death Records in Ohio for further background information and Guidelines for Offsite Reference Requests for instructions on how to obtain a copy of a certificate. NOTE: Look there also for special instructions for obtaining Death Certificates for STILLBORN.

ACCURACY

The Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program used to create the online database takes the scanned image (an electronic snapshot image of the index page) and processes it into a text file, matching the shapes of the letters as closely as possible. Errors can occur, particularly with letters of similar appearance.

For use as a guide for county names, a list of the 88 counties can be found here.

"Creative Search Techniques"
A common error of the OCR program is confusing the letters O D C U Q.
Other letter groups often confused are:

J I L
H II
M N V W
B S E F
K X
R A Please take this into consideration while searching the database. If a search on the name JOHNSON does not return expected results, try something like JCHNSCN. Similarly, if a search on the name ADDIE does not return expected results, try something like AOOIE. In the date and certificate fields the numbers 8 6 9 0 3 are problematic and often confused for each other by OCR. See the Death Index FAQ for more info.

WILD CARDS and TRUNCATION

The characters * and ? can be used as wild cards in the NAME fields and be quite helpful with searching variant spellings. * can be used to represent 0 or more letters, while ? represents 1 character only. The search CARL*TON would return CARLTON or CARLETON, while CARL* would return names such as CARL, CARLASS, CARLTON, and CARLEY.

Because the last name field in the original index contained a maximum of 11 letters, long last names are cut off or truncated (CZASTOLOWSKI will appear as CZASTOLOWSK). This is more of a problem in the first name field--many common names are cut off by the 7 letter limit (MARGARE, CATHERI, BENJAMI).

REPORTING ERRORS

We will continue to work on improving the accuracy of the data, verifying it against the hardcopy index. At regular scheduled intervals we upload corrections. Please send known problems/errors to us at <DeathIndex@ohiohistory.org> (or by postal service to Death Index, State Archives, Ohio Historical Society, 1982 Velma Ave., Columbus, OH 43211).

CREDITS

The ODCI database is a product of the Ohio Vital Information for Libraries Center (OVIL), a grant-funded project of the State Library of Ohio, OPLIN, and OHS.