Home > Public Death Records > Where can I search for death records for FREE?

Where can I search for death records for FREE?

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

  1. Shenaynay
    July 10th, 2011 at 11:09 | #1

    For what location and year?

    Maybe they are free if you turn up at the office they are held in and want to search them yourself but indexing records and putting them online costs money. If you are not even prepared to pay to see one record that you want how would you feel about your taxes going to pay some clerks to put every dead person’s record in the state online just on the off chance that someone might happen to want to see it someday?
    References :

  2. wendy c
    July 10th, 2011 at 11:15 | #2

    actually, death records are kept by the state, but that does not make them public or online. And..I suspect you are looking for death CERTIFICATES, which is not the same as death records.
    In most states, recent death certificates are restricted to specific family members with legal authority, and must be purchased. You can look at the ssdi
    http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
    This is a record..it is an index only. It is open. If you find your person here, he/she has died. You often may miss someone by a date being off, location or name different on the record.
    Historical death certificates are SOMETIMES available for specific states and time periods. Not all states.
    If you are doing genealogy..then you need to determine the place and time frame. For someone prior to 1900s in almost all states, the only record you will find is a tombstone, obituary, will/ probate, etc. All of those are RECORDS but not certificates. You need to know the difference.
    I am sure you want to know why certs are not open..the reason is simple. One, they can and have been used for ID theft, AND they are an income generator for the states.
    If you repost the exact info you need, we may be able to help you find it.
    References :

  3. Maxi
    July 10th, 2011 at 11:55 | #3

    If you go to your local records centre or family history centre you can view public records and for free, however if you want to sit at home and look online, someone has had to scan or transcribe them to enable them to be online…so in many cases commercial websites will do this and any business is in the business of making money for your convenience………..there are however many websites, often private websites and family history societies who raise money or transcribe records themselves to put them online for other people to view for free, but you need to know where to look and how to search for them………….you don’t say where you are looking, what dates, who etc so all I can do is give you this http://familytimeline.webs.com/ lots of good quality links on the links page for UK/Ireland and some for the US…particularly USgenweb and USwebarchive free scanned, indexes, records and tanscriptions
    References :

  4. Ted Pack
    July 10th, 2011 at 12:03 | #4

    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
    References :

  5. C P
    July 10th, 2011 at 12:48 | #5

    In addition to other sites:

    Ancestry.com can be searched for free this (2011) July 4th weekend –
    http://search.ancestry.com

    https://www.familysearch.org/

    Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness can sometimes do free look-ups
    http://www.raogk.org/

    Your local library – These often have datbases and subscriptions to pay sites (like Ancestry) and newspapers.

    Sometimes you can find out all sorts of things on the internet just typing the person’s name and a bit more information like a place, names of family members, etc. These random searches might produce an obituary, marriage announcement, someone else’s research, news article, death record from a GenWeb or historical society site, biographical info from books/histories, etc. Even if you don’t get the death date of the person you’re looking for, any information about the person and/or members of the family (don’t forget to include cousins, grandparents, etc.) will help you with time lines and places where they might have lived or passed.
    References :
    Experienced genealogy researcher

  6. Shirley T
    July 10th, 2011 at 13:33 | #6

    Each state has its own laws about who, when and where a person can obtain vital records on another.
    As Wendy stated they can be used for identity theft, even death records can be used to take advantage of a widow or widower.

    Also many states in the U.S. did not record vital information and issue certificates until the first quarter of the 20th century. Texas started in 1903 and some cities their health departments might have a few earlier. However it wasn’t until after WW2 that a specific law was passed requiring the info be sent to the state and certificates issued. Before then a lot of people who were born at home or died at home never got recorded. You could be enrolled at school, get a job, join the military, apply for and receive a social security number without a birth certificate. When the time came for them to draw social security they had to get delayed birth certificates. I worked for an insurance company many years ago and they accepted Bible records as proof of birth in paying out annuities.
    References :

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