Death Records Now

I have gone to several different sites but they all end up asking for money. I thought death records were public records and anyone should be able to search for a loved one but I’m hitting dead ends everywhere.

I put some links below. I wanted to deal with a common misconception first.

> I thought death records were public records

They are, and if you send the name and death date to the appropriate county courthouse, plus a check, which may be as little as $5 or as much as $35, you can get a copy. There isn’t any law that says a state or county has to spend tax money on a web site to make death records available for free.

By contrast, some records are NOT public; sealed adoptions records, and agreements hashed out between two parties in a civil lawsuit, for instance. You cannot get them no matter how much you pay.

Below:

These are all free. Some have ads at the top, which sometimes ask for a name and take you to a pay site, so be careful to distinguish between the advertisement and the input form. An index will have name, date and maybe something else; death records – 500 KB jpg’s of death certificates – are rare. Some of these say "Records" – I copied the page title – but are really indexes.

Social Security Death Index
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
1960ish – now; almost 90 million entries in November 2010.

Find-a-Grave
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi
53 million entries in November 2010, mostly the USA. Entries range; they may have one or more of:
Exact birth and death dates
A short biography/obituary
Links to the person’s parents’ graves and/or and children’s graves
Picture(s) of the person
The best ones have all of the above; the worst ones have just a name and year of death; "J. Smith, b. ????, d. 1912".

Arizona genealogy
http://genealogy.az.gov/
Births 1855 – 1934; deaths 1844 – 1959. Real records, not an index. Number of entries not given.

California Death index
http://vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/search.cgi
9,366,786 entries from 1940 – 1997

Kentucky Death Records
(Y!A only allows 10 links per answer, so I cheated. Change the "/ca/" in the URL for the California Death index to "/ky/" to get Kentucky.)
2,921,383 entries from 1911 – 2000

Maine Death Records
Change the "/ca/" in the URL for the California Death index to "/me/" to get Maine.)
401,960 entries from 1960 – 1997

Missouri Digital Archives
http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/deathcertificates/
Real records; Year range 1910 – "50 years ago", so the upper limit changes by one every year. Number of entries not stated, but it too would grow over time. Not all counties are here.

Texas Death Records
Change the "/ca/" in the URL for the California Death index to "/tx".)
3,963,456 entries from 1964 – 1998

West Virginia Birth, Death and Marriage records
http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_select.aspx
Real records; number of entries not stated. Years vary by county. Here are the first five counties, to give you a feel for it:

Barbour: 1853 – 1859, 1861 – 1969
Berkeley: 1871, 1875 – 1906, 1917 – 1970
Boone: 1865 – 1873, 1877 – 1883, 1885 – 1968
Braxton: 1853 – 1861, 1865, 1867 – 1969
Brooke: 1853 – 1860, 1862, 1865, 1867 – 1868, 1874 – 1880, 1885 – 1970

HUGE mystery. Walter and wife Pauline show up in 1920 Chicago census, with children Steven, Lawrence, Adeline. I find he had another daughter in 1915, who seemingly died. Per that census, he was born about 1888 in Poland. I CANNOT find him in any other census. Can’t find him in Illinois death index, findagrave, or google, except for recent obit of his daughter. He is not the Walter who died in 1944. He is not the Walter who was born in 1925 (1944 Walter is father to him).
EVERY Imbiorski in the SSDI is accounted for, and linked to my grandfather Andrew who immigrated before 1888, and his 4 sons. I have census for each of the 4..no Walter who FITS. There is an excellent documented file at rootsweb..he is not in that. I spent hours yesterday at familysearch, found tons of items, but nothing further on THIS Walter.
I don’t have ancestry.com, so if he has an immigration record, or full census showing when he came, I don’t have that. This ISN’T a common name where I could think there isn’t a relationship.. every other Imbiorski is documented and connected, as well as linked to Chicago. An Emborsky family in NY is likely to be a brother to Andrew, but that does not help here. Have been in touch with his granddaughter, who only knows her mom’s brothers name Steven. Want to be able to validate my connection to her.
Where did he come from, and what happened to him? What am I missing here, gang?
the key solution is posted here, but am leaving this open for anyone else to input… my thinking is that he and Pauline/Pearl died after 1950 (end of Illinois death index) but prior to social security death index which begins about 1960ish. I have a lead on what happened to Steven but not Lawrence…
I love this group!

Wendy, I checked Monavo and found a Walter Imbiorski who was born about 1896 and married Marie in 1920 in Winnebago County IL Archives Marriage Recordshttp://files.usgwarchives.org/il/winnebago/vitals/marriages/marri.txt

Ancestry also has a WW2 draft card for a Walter Imbiorski born 12 Dec 1881 in Poland, This would have been from 1942.

The full 1920 census info says
1920 United States Federal Census
about Walter Imborski
Name: Walter Imborski
[Walter Imbordki]
Home in 1920: Chicago Ward 16, Cook (Chicago), Illinois
Age: 36
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1884
Birthplace: Poland
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
[Head]
Spouse’s Name: Pauline Imborski
Father’s Birth Place: Poland
Mother’s Birth Place: Poland
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Sex: Male
Home owned: Rent
Year of immigration: 1905
Able to read: Yes
Able to Write: Yes
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members: Name Age
Walter Imborski 36
Pauline Imborski 28
Steven Imborski 9
Lawrence Imborski 3
[3 1/12]
Adeline Imborski 0
[7/12]

http://vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/search.cgi
California Death Records 9,366,786 records from 1940 thru 1997

Warning 1: It is an index; the most you’ll get is name, sex, birthdate, birth state, father’s surname, mother’s maiden name, residence at time of death, death date. That’s the most; many records have blank fields.

Warning 2: It is supported by advertising. The ads rotate. Sometimes the ad asks for a name and leads you to a pay site. Scroll down past the ad.

www.findagrave.com is nation-wide and free. It has some entries for California. The entries range from the simple (John Smith, 1903 – 1971) to the elaborate; some have biographies, cause of death (especially if the person died in an accident, in battle, or of a disease) and links to spouses and/or parents and/or children.

You can find obituaries in old newspapers on microfilm in libraries. They usually don’t mention cause of death, but they usually have a mini-biography.

My Grandmother died in 1949 in Los Angeles California. I looked on the California and Los Angeles County records website to see if I can order her Death Certificate as part of a geneology project but it says 1995 to present deaths only. I went to rootsweb and got her SSN#, but not sure if its correct. Where else can I look?

This link is to the California Death Index. Enter her first name, her married surname and the death year. The results should give you her date of birth/death, her maiden name and her mother’s maiden name http://vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/search.cgi

For death certificates, you find more information about how to order copies for deaths between 1905 – present at this link http://www.cdph.ca.gov/certlic/birthdeathmar/Pages/default.aspx

During some research for family genealogy, I came across a little confusion about the flu epidemic of 1918. My great grandfather was drafted to WWI and reported to Fort Riley, Kansas in sept of 1918, by Oct 15 he was dead. Now no one knows where his body is and there was no death certificate issued. His death just kind of become a common knowledge thing but with no actual proof. Where bodies just disposed of with no record of who had died, like in a big burn ditch? Where could I look to find some hard copy proof? I’ve been to Kansas dept of vitals with no luck either. Thanks in advance!

That is an interesting question. I gave a link that has lots of information regarding the epidemic. It was also postulated that the folks didn’t die of the flu, but the cytokine storm that was invoked by the virus, because generally healthy young adults were among the most that ended up dieing. The very young and very old were spared, mostly because their immune systems were slow to react as opposed to those healthy younger adults. Good luck with your search.

His name is Allan or Allen Shirley. I’m not for sure on the correct spelling. He died in 1985. I’m doing this for my mother so alot of help would be appreciated!
WITHOUT PAYING MONEY! because we all know it’s tight right now!

RootsWeb has a death record data base for California 1940 – 1995. They don’t have one for every state and they don’t have anything later or earlier for California.

http://vitals.rootsweb.com/ca/death/search.cgi

SHIRLEY, ALLEN
B. 02/14/1934 in COLORADO
Mother’s maiden name: MANQUIS
D. LOS ANGELES(19) 04/08/1985
[I don’t know what "(19)" means]

The corresponding SSDI says his LR was El Monte.

That is a death RECORD, not a death Certificate. The Certificate will tell you his mother’s full name and his father’s full name, if the person who supplied the data knew. His SSN application is $27, but he filled it out. 30% of the death certificates I see say "Unknown" for parents. 99% of the SSN applications I see have both parents filled in.

You would have to drive to the county library branch in El Monte, or send them a request and a check, to get the obituary. He was almost certainly not in the LA Times, unless he was famous or infamous. He may have been in the El Monte (News / Herald / Sun / Star) – whatever the local paper is there.

I’m doing genealogy and I’m looking for information on my grandfather. He immigrated from Mexico and I can’t find him. I know when he passed away and where but am running into a road block. Can anyone help?
I’m not looking for the certificate itself. I’m more or less looking for the information that is found on it like the SSDI database. I was just wondering if there is any sites that would tell me information like that but involving birth instead of death. For instance, place of birth and mother and father.
Particularly, I’m looking for anything on my grandpa’s birthplace and parents. His name was Frank Hernandez. Born in 1897 and died in December 1978 in South Dakota.

http://vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/search.cgi
has "9,366,786 records from 1940 thru 1997". It is for California. There are other sites like that; certain states, certain time periods. There isn’t a nation-wide data base of all deaths.

http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
is nation-wide but not everyone is on it.

www.findagrave.com has 22 million entries.

Hunt around. Google "Death index Utah" or "Death Index Idaho".

Note that almost no site has the certificate; you have to write away (and pay for) that