Death certificate of Harry Florence Flowers (1845-1928)
Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906-1963
Last April, the state of Pennsylvania made death certificates between 1906 to 1963 available on Ancestry.com. Again, if you do not have a membership with Ancestry, I will encourage you to do the two week free trial. Choose a period of time where you are on vacation or do not have many commitments; therefore, you can maximize your time with Ancestry and gather the information you need.
In a previous post, I spoke about the numerous death certificates I found among this family. I revisited this database today and just did an open search. Instead of searching for a specific person, I just entered the surname Flowers and left the remaining spaces (first names, death dates, etc.). EXCEPT RACE. For race, I entered black and selected exact. I searched through the 61 records looking for any Flowers that were related to this family. I came across no new leads. In your research, please note the dates of this database. If you are looking for any individuals before 1906 or after 1963, you will not find them; therefore, I could not find a death certificate for Rachel, John, or Vincent because they passed away in the late 20th century to the early 21st century.
Florida Death Index, 1877-1998
This is a completely new index for me. I have searched sparsely throughout this database for Josie and Samuel Flowers–Harry and Lydia’s eldest children–as well as Lydia Bradley Flowers herself. I decided to do the same search for this database. Search using only the last name Flowers (choosing the exact option if you are using Ancestry.com) and typing black in the race, choosing the exact same option). Total count–663 people #Lordhelpme
To ease this mass amount of information, I decided to search for those who have died prior to 1920. Why? Because I will be able to expand Harry’s earlier life. Perhaps I could find his parents or even siblings. Furthermore, I am limiting my research to two different counties of Florida–Putnam and Duval County. Harry was born in Putnam County and resided in Duval County after the American Civil War. This will probably take up most to a week as I am finishing off work training as a graduate resident assistant at my new graduate school.
Wish me luck!
Christina
Diary of a Historian 
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