Where do I find US death records?

State vital records offices hold certified copies. Ancestry, FamilySearch, and Find A Grave carry indexed collections. County-level records (coroner reports, burial permits) supplement the state file.

How reliable is the information on a death certificate?

The medical facts (cause and date) are primary evidence. The parents' names are only as reliable as the informant — often a spouse or child who may never have known the deceased's parents personally.

The Social Security Death Index — a database of Americans whose deaths were reported to the Social Security Administration. It covers most deaths since 1962 and many earlier. Public access has been trimmed since 2011 for identity-theft prevention.

How do I find an obituary for an ancestor?

Chronicling America (Library of Congress) covers US newspapers 1777–1963 for free. Newspapers.com and GenealogyBank have paid access to fuller collections. Small-town papers often ran fuller obits than city dailies.

What do cemetery records tell me?

Burial dates, plot locations, and often family members buried nearby — sometimes the fastest way to identify a spouse or parent whose name isn't in the death certificate.

records guide

Death records — the paper trail after a life ends

By Margaret Ellery, EditorFact-checked by Rowan VessPublished January 1, 2024Reviewed August 6, 2026

Short answer

Death records include state-issued certificates, newspaper obituaries, cemetery burial lists, funeral home ledgers, and the Social Security Death Index. Together they establish when and where a person died and — often — who survived them. Read certificates critically: the informant's memory determines the quality of everything except the cause of death.

Certificates: state vital records office, or FamilySearch for older records.
Obituaries: Chronicling America for 1777–1963, paid databases for later.
Cemeteries: Find A Grave and BillionGraves for photographed markers.
SSDI: post-1962 deaths reported to Social Security.

How to use this guide in real research

Begin with a specific person, place, and approximate date rather than a name alone. Record the repository, collection, image or certificate number, and access date for every result. That citation lets another researcher retrace the same evidence and helps you distinguish people who share a name.

Treat indexes and transcriptions as finding aids. Whenever possible, open the original image and compare names, ages, relationships, locations, and informants with records you already trust. A plausible match becomes a supported conclusion only when independent sources agree and conflicting evidence has been addressed.

Quality checks before adding a conclusion

Search spelling variants, initials, nicknames, neighboring households, and a wider date range.
Prefer records created close to the event, while noting who supplied each fact.
Keep negative searches and rejected matches in your research log so work is not repeated.
Mark uncertain relationships clearly until multiple independent records support them.

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Frequently asked questions

Short, sourced answers to the questions we get most often at the desk.

State vital records offices hold certified copies. Ancestry, FamilySearch, and Find A Grave carry indexed collections. County-level records (coroner reports, burial permits) supplement the state file.