How to Get Death Certificate Information for Free
While of course death is generally never a happy event for anyone affiliated with the deceased, having accurate information and a death certificate is not only helpful in finding or tracking a family tree or genealogy, but it can also be vital for record management and in some cases lawsuits or trials. That being said, generally death certificates and the information on them will cost you, as it takes money to keep them maintained. However, there are a few sources you can look to to get this information for free.
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Instructions
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Write to the Vital Statistics Office.
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Each state maintains their own vital statistics office, and you will want to seek out the state in which the person you are looking into has died. You will write a short letter stating the nature of your request, everything printed or typed. You will provide the date, all names and aliases of the person who died, their gender, date and place of death, as well as your relation to the deceased. You will further state your purpose, your name and address, and your drivers license number and issued state. Finally, sign the letter and mail it along with a self addressed stamped envelope.
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Search online. There are some sites such as, http://www.vitalrec.com/deathrecords/#Links, that allow you to do a database search similar to what you would find from your mailed request. By typing in the name and state of which the person died, you can find out if there is information on file.
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Look into family search sites. There are sites that track family trees and other genealogical statistics and here you can find information on the deaths of relatives and others. These sites include http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp, http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi, and http://www.ellisisland.org/. Here any information they have in file is generally free and used to help families in tracking their roots and building family trees.
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Ask a relative.If you know someone who may have been related to the person that has died, they may have a copy of the death certificate, or at least know some of the information that would be on it. You can contact and ask them if you are unable to locate what you are looking for from the above options.
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Tips & Warnings
Many times when you are looking into public records you may need to provide a social security number of the person who has died.
Being that identity theft is a common problem, some records are not easily obtained or some information may be kept private for one reason or another. Often you will be asked to supply some personal information of yourself and your reasons for wanting to acquire these facts.
