How do I find relatives of someone who has been dead for over 13 years?

Question

My godmother passed away when I was 10. I can't remember any of her relatives names. The only thing I remember is her name and date of birth. I'm running out of options. Please tell me what other measures can I take to try to find her relatives.

Answer 1

Use the Social Security Death Index  

http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

to find a date of death.  Then contact a library to find if they have a copy of her obituary in their newspaper files. Many newspapers are not indexed, so if you have at least a month and year to search obits, it helps.  Usually obits will list next of kin and a city at least.  If not, contact the funeral home listed to see if they have contact information for the family. Then use www.switchboard.com or www.zabasearch.com or other such search engine to see if you can find addresses for them.

Good luck!

Answer 2

With that you can usually find a lot unless her name was something like Jane Smith.

There are free genealogy web sites where you can post messages.  I found some long lost cousins that way.