Typically, people looking for information on their ancestors skip right past the death record, heading in a beeline for other vital records such as marriage and birth. One might not imagine what a document about death could possibly do with the living. Documents of death, like any other vital records, can be very helpful in various ways. Perhaps the most significant information such record can provide is the cause of death. With the knowledge of how genetics contribute to health and diseases, the fact that an ancestor may have died from a genetically predisposed disease is paramount. Death records also provide so many other important details about the deceased. The central repository for Illinois death notices is the Bureau of the Vital Statistics which functions under the Department of Public Health.