Dick Eastman posted the following on his blog:
Internet users everywhere can now view Hank Williams' death
certificate, or great-grandpa's birth certificate through an upgraded
online database of more than 5.7 million vital records in West
Virginia, officials said yesterday.
Unlike most states that provide only lists or indices of vital records
online, West Virginia's database also includes images of the original
files, said Joe Geiger, director of the West Virginia Division of
Culture and History's archives and history section.
West Virginia's searchable database also is free.
State officials started the online service four years ago by entering
records from Calhoun, Gilmer, Hardy, Harrison, Mineral and Pendleton
counties, said state archivist Debra Basham. Just recently, it
completed entering data from all 55 counties and upgraded its server
to increase by three times the speed with which users can access and
download information.
Records can be searched by name, date or county.
Some birth and death records from as early as 1853 are available, but
better records exist after 1917 when the West Virginia Department of
Health Vital Registration began collecting county records. Marriage
records are available from the inception of each county, the earliest
of which dates to 1780. However, birth records are not placed online
until 100 years after the event while death records are also kept
offline, but only for 50 years.
The West Virginia online vital records database is available at
http://www.wvculture.org/vrr. I'd suggest you first read a great
article giving details that may be found at
http://www.wvculture.org/history/vitalrecordsarticle.pdf.
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/12/west-virginia-offe...
I briefly took a look at it and found 51 death records listed for
Carrier and they give you a copy of the actual record. Pretty cool for
our W.V. cousins.
It won't work with some browsers so if it looks garbled try a different one.
Neal