Updated with link to 1906 births.The State of Pennsylvania has put its death indexes online at its own website. The death indexes cover the years from 1906 to 1961. Also online is an index of 1906 births. Those are the only Pennsylvania births online at the moment.
Read the entire post to make your search easier.
Added Feb. 29 Here is the URL to go to Pennsylvania's page with a clickable link to the 1906 birth indexes (the only year indexed):
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=1086145&mode=2The 1906 births are in PDF form and seem to be in simple alphabetical order. The second column on the PDF seems to be the mother's maiden name, but there are no column headings to verify that. Place of birth is also noted.
The first births PDF has 1906 births that were not indexed until the 1970s and later. They are arranged in index card form, from A to Z. They have the mother's maiden name and place of birth.
Here is the URL to go directly to the death indexes. There is an individual link for each year:
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=1085804&mode=2 Added Feb. 24: Because navigating Pennsylvania's death indexes can be confusing, I'm adding a sample search in boldface below.The general order of the death indexes is alphabetical within a particular year.
However, the years 1920-1924 and 1930-1951 are organized according to the Russell Soundex System, which orders names using the first letter of the surname followed by a 3-digit code based on the other consonants in the surname. To download a PDF with instructions on how to determine the Soundex number, go to
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/public_records/20686This Russell Soundex PDF link is halfway or so down the page. This entire page at the second link explains the indexes and tells you how to get a copy of a death certificate.
The good news is that uncertified copies cost only $3.00. The bad news is that the turnaround time for mailing the certificate is 16 to 18 weeks.
Added FEB. 24:AN EXAMPLE
The reply below prompted me to add an example of how to find someone who died in a year when the indexes are arranged using the Soundex system. Here's the surname COOKE, died in 1933.
COOKE is fairly easy to figure out. The problem is that the instructions for determining the Soundex code don't make it clear that the first letter of the surname is not part of the code. It's the letter under which in any particular year you look for the three-digit code.
So using C as the letter to look under, and ignoring the vowels, which are not included in any code numbers, we're left with one letter in Cooke, the letter K. The number equivalent for K is 2. Since there are no additional consonants in Cooke, the rest of the three-digit code is two zeroes. The code for Cooke, then, is C 200.
Three-digit code numbers under any letter start at 000, and they can go up to or beyond 663.
When you click on 1933 in the link (above) to the actual indexes, you get the following alphabetical list of of PDFs:
D-33 A-B.pdf
D-33 C-D.pdf
D-33 D-E.pdf
D-33 F-G.pdf
D-33 H-H.pdf
D-33 H-J.pdf
D-33 K-L.pdf
D-33 M-M.pdf
D-33 M-N.pdf
D-33 O-P.pdf
D-33 Q-R.pdf
D-33 S-S.pdf
D-33 T-V.pdf
D-33 W-Z.pdf
Cooke obviously is under C. So open the C-D PDF. There you get another list, this one of various letter combinations beginning with C, each followed by a three-digit code. For example:
COO 160
COOUET 230
CHA 320
CAL 414 and so
Since you're looking for C 200, you would click on COO 160 and scroll down in that group of pages until you came to the entries under C 200.
It's best to resize the PDF page down to 66% so that you can have all of the page columns on your screen, since unfortunately, in 1933, the code number (C200 and any other number) is in a center column, following the place where the death occurred.
In 1933, C 200 starts on p. 12 and runs through p. 18. Cooke (and Cook) are found on all of those pages, among other names coded C 200.
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