How do I find a German birth certificate, and death certificate?

How can I find in public records the blood type of my deceased ther? I only have birth and death certificate?

• He died 20 years ago and there are no other documents left in our possession.

• Answer:

  In the US, unless you catch a flukey, darn lucky break, you aren't going to be able to acquire that information. Given this person died 20 years ago, blood typing of newborns just wasn't done. So there would be no recording on the Birth Certificate (as you probably have already found). Unless there was some reason to do an extensive autopsy (very rare) it is unlikely any death "record" would have this information either. So this information would only be in medical records. In the US though, with the passage of HIPAA laws, you won't be able to get those records unless maybe you are a direct descendant. Maybe. A little know fact is that HIPAA extends to deceased persons as well as living persons. You can't release medical information on a deceased individual (one argument, an insurance company could find your deceased parent died of ovarian cancer and thus bump up your rates because you now have a higher chance of getting this condition). A consequence of HIPAA is that doctors and hospitals are purging old records. Technically, they can't retain medical records without a medical reason - and clearly there is little medical reason to retain the medical records of a patient that died 20 years earlier. So unless you catch a fluky, very unusual break somewhere, you aren't going to be able to get this information (in the US anyway).