Free Public Death Records
March 18, 2008
Death Records is one of the key public vital records. It is available free of charge. They are also provided commercially by private information brokers. Being public records, they are accessible by any member of the public. In other words, anyone can conduct a public death record search on anybody. There are variations in restriction and rules governing the retrieval and use of public death records from state to state but by on large, they are quite freely available.
Free public death records come in two forms. The more prominent of the two is those sourced from government offices. They can be requested by mail, telephone, fax or in person. Online retrieval is also catching on. The other source of free public death records is usually offered by commercial outfits as an add-on for another primary product or service. Some of them are genuine but others can be really bad news.
Assembling public death records from free sources can be quite a challenge. The best starting point is the government office itself if you know where the exact place where the death was reported. If not, the date or approximate time period can also prove helpful. Otherwise, you can start out with a wide search and zoom in step by step but this is only viable electronically in all practicality. But the most fundamental requirement to retrieve free public death records is time, patience and will.
The standard information contained in death records are personal particulars of the deceased, spouse, children and parents, time and place of death, obituaries, death certificate, burial and funeral matters. This information is commonly used in Genealogy research, family tree and other historical studies. A lot can be learned about the deceased especially when obituaries are attached. Social Security Number may also be available throwing up an entire host of other vital information and uses. The Death Certificate is the principal document in the death records and is required for many official and legal purposes. Its certified copies may have to be separately requested.
Free public death records are readily available. The trick is in picking the right source. Log onto the internet and you can find floods of information about free public death records. Don’t take them all at face value because information regulation and policing on the Web still have a long way to go. Some of them just cannot be trusted.
Comments
Got something to say?